


when i'm looking up at you

by duplicity



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Bucky Barnes-centric, CATWS With A Twist, Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dependency Issues, Do you get the picture, F/M, Flashbacks, Friendship, Identity Issues, Loss of Identity, M/M, Minor Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Murder, No Cut and Dry CATWS Re-Hash for you, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8723029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duplicity/pseuds/duplicity
Summary: Steve had never wanted to kill Nazis, he had only ever wanted to do the right thing. But Steve is gone, and the sole reason Bucky Barnes had remained standing with the noose loose around his neck is revenge. The green boys at camp call him America's soldier, the Soldier, the Captain. He is the man who always, always escapes death and wins despite all the odds. And so Captain America may be the one who leads the raid on the compound and bravely battles the Red Skull to a desperate end, but Bucky Barnes is the one who flies the plane into the Arctic ocean, finally longing for the cold. Or, alternately: someone who is not named Steve Rogers stands in the middle of Times Square and screams.





	1. Winter

**Author's Note:**

> This is, at its core, an AU where Steve Rogers falls from the train and Bucky Barnes takes his place as Captain America. Deals extensively with Bucky’s POV as he struggles to reconcile himself as a person separate of the man he knew as Steve Rogers. Reads through the end of CATFA through to CATWS.
> 
> Thank you to all who read this story and supported me throughout the way. I'm sorry for making you suffer so much. I swear to god I really do love Bucky Barnes.
> 
> Title taken from BLUE — Troye Sivan; I recommend you give it a listen at some point during this story. Fanmix for this fic is available [here](http://8tracks.com/daisyridlay/when-i-m-looking-up-at-you).
> 
> The poem in the prologue is written by me.
> 
> Catch me on tumblr at [@daisyridlay](http://daisyridlay.tumblr.com)!

PROLOGUE

 

* * *

 

 _you slept for so long_  
_that the world forgot you_  
_and championed your story_  
_as their own instead._  
  
_your fears became fearless_  
_in the rose-coloured hands of history;_  
_you were as polished and gleaming_  
_as the shield they once gave you_  
_to protect their liberty._  
  
_would they worship you now,_  
_if they knew the things you took to your frozen grave?_  
  
_all the lives you took in your bloody crusade_  
_that became but a number trailing in your righteous wake?_  
  
_will they tell the world_  
_how you were a vengeful god,_  
_sent to take the toll_  
_for the crimes they had yet to pay for?_  
  
_how easy they forget_  
_that war is not a thing of beauty_  
_when you look like an adonis carved_  
_from the mountains instead_  
_of flesh and blood._

  
_oh captain, you may sleep now  
_ _but who did your shield truly protect, them or you?_

_— a.w._

 

* * *

Bucky Barnes doesn't remember what it's like to be warm anymore.

He is blue all over: navy blue coat, grey blue eyes, stiff blue lips, and chilled blue fingers— but his soul, his soul is what has been bruised purple, squeezed tight with the hands he should have, couldn't have reached. Everything is cold since he lost those hands.

Ghosts aren't real, he thinks blankly, suddenly. The frozen snow is crunching beneath his feet, the harsh winds cutting him open. Red must be spilling out of him, seeping into his blue and colouring his skin with purple too. But all Bucky feels is the ghost of hands in his, the deadweight of the rifle strapped on his back.

The sky is so grey that Bucky has forgotten what it looked like before; like the ocean, like the colour of Steve’s eyes. It’s so vast and empty and strange he has to stop a bit, drag his eyes to the acres of white, try to remember the outline of Steve’s body and pray he won’t find it cold and still in the snow.

He walks for hours. He hears nothing, sees nothing, knows nothing but the empty space at his side, at his twelve, deep in his bones. He walks until Dum Dum is the only one still with him, stubbornly frozen and stiff, but doggedly keeping pace with Bucky's mindless mission.

“Go back,” he says. _Before you die out here too,_ he doesn't add, because he can't accept that. His heart is staunch and stubborn, always tethered, whether it’s five feet or five hundred or five thousand leagues away. It has a home, a partner: a wide-mouthed, golden-haired son-of-a-bitch punk that it knows like it knows the blood in his veins.

“Not without you, Sarge,” is the reply he gets from Dugan.

_Not without you_ , Bucky remembers, and he thinks that he could cry if all his tears hadn't been frozen into his body. But Dugan's gait slows eventually, and the more Bucky yells at him to go back the less he responds, until Bucky has to go back with him because he can't have another death on his hands, he won't; he's already lost his mind and he can't lose anyone else.

So they go. They go, and when they arrive he heads straight to the bar only to find it's been blown to pieces, charred and burned, and that alcohol can't dampen the ache in his head or the rattle in his lungs that makes his throat swell shut with memories.

* * *

Winter sun filtered weakly through the closed window, but he could still feel the chill of frosty air slipping on through. Bucky used to love winter as a kid. He loved the snow and the way it sparkled like sugar on a bright day. Then he met Steve Rogers, and winter became something like the bogeyman, always lurking around the edges, a silent thief that zapped Steve's energy and made his skin pale and sweaty, his lungs weak and tired.

 

And Steve was more important than anything really, so he was definitely more important than winter and snowball fights. Bucky had already vowed to give up snowball fights, to ban winter from Brooklyn forever if it meant that Steve wouldn't have to suffer another season of bad cough. And when Bucky made promises about Steve he always meant them.

 

Steve was quiet today, wrapped in blankets like a caterpillar, and when Bucky came home from school he wrapped himself around the blankets like a long-limbed octopus, which was a creature that lived in the ocean with eight legs, and wasn't that neat, Stevie?

 

Bucky thought maybe he'd like to have eight legs just so he could keep Steve warmer and safer, bundled away where the cold couldn't touch him. The cold had a lot of legs, a lot of invisible ones to poke at Steve with, and Bucky’d bat them all away if he could, with his eight octopus arms and legs.

 

So they lay on the couch and Bucky told him about the octopus and how Annie Smith had sent her regards and get well soon, and that Steve was lucky because Annie Smith was maybe the third cutest gal in the whole school, and remember how she once said your drawings were neat? Steve had nodded and coughed, tried to smile when Bucky suggested he ask her out for a walk to the park.

 

It was one of those days where Steve wasn't up for talking, so Bucky lapsed into silence, letting Steve tuck cold feet between his longer legs. He counted each of Steve’s breaths and waited slowly as Steve got a little less cold. Inch by stubborn inch, Steve was warmed up.

 

When Sarah Rogers got home, she commented on how Steve looked better, and maybe that was the start of some colour in his cheeks. Bucky had beamed proudly, told her Steve had really done all the work and gave Steve's shoulder a squeeze before scampering home.

 

The day after that Steve was much better, back to snapping at Bucky to stop wriggling around as they tangled together on Steve's creaky bed and telling him how Lisa Baker was never gonna look twice at his ugly mug if he didn't quit being such a jerk. Bucky delighted in it, loved to pieces the way Steve's skin no longer held that sickly tinge and how his breathing was stable and regular.

 

He'd learned from Steve's mother how important it was to breathe properly; how to take deep long pulls of air so Steve's lungs could copy his, and maybe even remember how they were supposed to work so Steve could get better. That last part about the remembering Bucky had made up himself, but it held true enough because Steve pulled through winter after winter, leaving Bucky to wonder that if maybe he clung to Steve long enough he could teach the rest of Steve's body to be healthy and well too.

* * *

 

Agent Carter finds him, a bombed out wreck of a man to match the bar he’s in. She gives him a weak telling-off that he half listens to, but only because it’s rude to ignore a lady.

 

They sit together, arms brushing as Peggy knocks back a drink. She’s a helluva dame, Bucky knows, because Steve liked her, liked her alot, and he told Bucky how she liked him back before he got big so that makes her alright in Bucky’s books.

 

“Colonel Phillips wants to see you,” she says, two drinks in and still not a hair out of place. Her eyes are rimmed red to match her lipstick, though, and there’s a set to her jaw that betrays just how tightly she’s holding herself together.

 

“What the fuck has he got to say to me,” Bucky says tiredly.

 

He can’t even say he wants to go home anymore, because home is six feet under and buried in snow. He can’t say how he plans to throw himself into the line of fire on whatever mission they’ve got next because Carter will have him shipped back.

 

Hell, maybe that what Phillips wants, to send him back. Good ol’ Captain America’s sidekick. Sorry we couldn’t save your national hero, America. Here, have the guy who failed to save him instead. Got a smile for the camera, Sergeant Barnes? Got a minute for an interview?

 

And Bucky wouldn’t mind soaking up the punishment, honest, he knows he deserves it.

 

Bucky might have gone to war for his country, but he only stayed for Steve.

 

“I can honestly say I’ve no idea,” Carter replies, and she sounds tired beyond her years.

 

Silently he pours them another round. Neither of them raise a glass. They’re still in denial.

 

* * *

 

“All due respect, but no fuckin’ way.”

Colonel Phillips is unfazed by this. “Listen, son—”

“If you say ‘we’ve got a war to win’, I’m going to shoot myself in the head,” Bucky says harshly, and he’s not kidding, not anymore. His throat is closing up, and he knows he won’t be able to speak soon— he’ll dissolve into madness and grief, but he can’t let Phillips see, can’t let them know how close he is to being thoroughly broken. “And if you so much as think of telling me this was what he would have wanted—” He breaks off, his head spinning.

“The people need a hero,” Phillips says. “They need _you_ , Sergeant Barnes. This is the legacy that Captain America— that Captain Rogers, has. You of all people should want that legacy to be a victory.”

But to him Steve’s legacy wasn’t Captain America. Steve’s legacy was careful artist’s hands, a smile brighter and warmer than the sun, and a heart big enough to cram all of Brooklyn in with room to spare. What did the war matter when it had taken Steve from him, he thinks, then immediately feels awful. The war matters, it does, and Bucky is too selfishly lost in his own torment to think past anything.

He feels like someone has carved out his insides, scooped out Bucky Barnes and left someone new— someone who has grown in him since he left Azzano, craving blood and gunmetal and war. And now Bucky can’t close his eyes, he can’t sleep without red, white, and blue painting his nightmares. He can’t hold his rifle without his hands clenching too tight, his heart thumping with adrenaline. He can’t look at the jagged pink scar on his hand and arm, already healing too fast, and not think of the cold.

The whispers have already begun. News travels faster than bullets in war, and Steve Rogers’ continued absence will not go untested for much longer. Phillips is going to have someone don the uniform no matter what Bucky says or does. Letters home will be censored of Steve Rogers, his identity erased in the name of the war. In the name of Captain America, Steve’s role will become nothing but that: a role. A part he played instead of the man he was. Bucky feels sick to his stomach and it must show on his face because Phillips doesn’t push it further.

“Let me know by tomorrow what your decision is. You’re the best damn sniper in the US army Barnes, and I’d hate to see your unit go to waste.” The Howling Commandos, Bucky thinks numbly. He hadn’t realized they’d be disbanded, hadn’t stopped to think about the far-reaching consequences of Steve’s—

They never would have been a unit if it wasn’t for Steve.

He lowers his eyes, shakes his head like a dog, trying to find in himself the strength to move forward. Phillips waits for him, patient now that he scents the blood in the water, waiting for the dominoes of Bucky’s will to fall across the game board.

“I’ll do it,” he croaks out, the taste of ashes in his throat. “I’ll do it, but I want the Commandos, and I want to pick the missions.” Steve wouldn't have settled for any less.

* * *

 

The next time he thinks to ask after Carter he is told that she's been transferred. Further inquiry reveals nothing. He figures the reminders are too much and he doesn't blame her.

 

Phillips outlines a new plan to him. He has to sign some form or another. He's cursing in his head, thinking of these forms, or something like them, with Steve's curved lettering, neat and smooth, just resting on the thick black lines. Thinks how Steve probably didn't look twice or think to read the terms.

 

He wonders what it means that when Steve Rogers dies Bucky Barnes is the one to vanish; how when he becomes a ghost, both Steve Rogers and James Barnes are casualties as Captain America lives on.

 

Someone comes to measure him for a new costume. He stands still, breathes deeply, doesn't remember a dark laboratory or the glint of light off of a syringe and a small man's glasses. His mouth fills with blood and the inside of his cheek is raw for a day before it heals over. The pink scar on his hand is long gone, but it still throbs: another thing that continues to hurt despite its loss.

 

Carter sends her regards a week later, in a heavily censored letter. He burns it and smothers the smoking ashes under the heel of his new red boots. He stops smoking a day later.

 

The cowl fits perfectly, sliding over his face like a new glove. He doesn't look at the mirror that's offered to him; he couldn't bear to think of his own face staring through the mask.

 

Someone asks to dye his hair. He lets them. He avoids looking at his reflection constantly now. The Commandos watch him deteriorate with sad eyes, stop inviting him for drinks he doesn't join them for. He starts to forget to eat unless someone plates it for him. His stomach churns and gnaws at him either way, but he makes himself keep the food down.

 

What he doesn't forget is the way Steve’s hair fell over his forehead, soft and smooth like fields of wheat. When he makes the mistake of polishing his knife a little too well, he thinks how they got the hair colour all wrong.

 

Someone takes him to see Phillips. The Colonel's face wears a painful grimace, and he can imagine the Colonel is already marking down the shadow standing in front of him as a cost of war.

 

(Howard Stark delivers a new shield, but doesn't bother to show his face to the newly minted Captain.)

 

He doesn't think too hard about the letter his family is going to receive from Colonel Phillips as James Buchanan Barnes is declared dead. It'll be true enough soon. He doesn't plan on surviving the war anymore, only living long enough to make the Nazis rue the day they ever heard the name Captain America.

 

Steve had never wanted to kill Nazis, he had only ever wanted to do the right thing. But Steve is gone, and the sole reason Bucky Barnes had remained standing with the noose loose around his neck is revenge.

 

Sometimes, he still catches his hands clenching at nothing, the swallowed scream building in his gut. _Soon_ , he tells himself. _Soon_.

 

He trains till he's skin and bone and muscle, shoots till he's the best damn sniper in the whole goddamn war. He wipes the blood off his face with the back of his hand and wears an empty, haunted smile. He lives for scent of gunpowder and the deadly thrill of the mission, blindly taking every stupid risk he knows he would have wrung Steve’s neck out for. His laughter turns sharp and harsh, his humour black and bitter. His fingers never, ever flinch on the trigger. The green boys at camp call him America's soldier, the Soldier, the Captain. He is the man who always, always escapes death and wins despite all the odds.

 

He is the bogeyman to the Germans: a myth and a living horror all in one. He is the hero to the public: their polished saviour that they only ever see from a distance in the new promotional shots. To himself, he is no longer anything but a ticking time-bomb aimed at the heart of HYDRA.

 

And so Captain America may be the one who leads the raid on the compound and bravely battles the Red Skull to a desperate end, but Bucky Barnes is the one who flies the plane into the Arctic ocean, finally longing for the cold.

 

So it goes: Steve Rogers dies, Bucky Barnes dies, and two Soldiers are born.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember to leave a comment and/or subscribe if you liked this!


	2. You Were Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I backdated the chapter by mistake so I'm reposting it. Sorry to anyone who gets this notif twice.

Steve doesn't remember.

 

He doesn't remember. Time used to feel real, used to have some substance that now eludes him. Sometimes shadows flicker against the ceiling, the walls— like pieces of the living, moving world he is no longer a part of. In these brief moments between the searing agony that tears through his body, the pain that is waging its own private war against the serum flowing through his veins, everything feels distant and detached. He can convince himself he is somewhere far away.

 

They cut and cut away from him, bits and pieces that sometimes grow back, sometimes don't. Notes are made, files are cultivated, and he repeats the words _Captain_ _Steven_ _Grant_ _Rogers_ against the blade of the scalpel on his skin until his voice is gone. They soon learn the physical parts of him grow back. He soon learns that the rest don't.

 

He doesn't remember what it's like to be whole anymore, and maybe he never really did, not since he encased himself in metal and emerged six feet above the ground, built like a weapon. And make no mistake, he is a weapon; he is honed to perfection through science and art and battle. He was a medical miracle and now he is an asset.

 

A technician dies whenever he lashes out, full of pure rage and fire for a cause he's sure has been lost. Maybe recently, maybe long ago. His mind is still sharp, but his history is elusive, the concept of time itself a puzzling mystery. He looks at the dead body and wonders how many more there are that he doesn't remember making. After, as electricity courses through his body, he thinks the lost cause must be him. But he can't give up, he can't, even if he's not sure why.

  
The next time he lashes out a technician dies, and he is full of confused anger and pain for a cause he's sure has been lost. Maybe recently—

 

He doesn't remember how to pray. Not properly, not in a way that makes him think he'll be heard. He wonders if someone looked for his body. He hopes they didn't, he hopes that they took one look at the blank white snow and went far, far away. He doesn't know what the world looks like without snow anymore.

 

He does know that he once saved a compound full of captured men.

 

Tortured, lost men like him: all soldiers. Soldiers, like he was before he became this tattered man who fears everything and nothing. But there is one man who keeps his thoughts clear, a man who keeps him from drowning underneath the new thing he was becoming. The man whose name he cannot recall. The man he saved. But he knows: he once saved a compound full of tortured men to save one man, and this fact keeps him awake long after he forgets everything else.

 

Eventually he stops flinching when they touch him. He learns to hold still, to suffer through as quickly as he can, to cherish whatever brief respite he is given whenever he is given it. He catalogues faces and accents, he tries to remember them, he promises to himself someday that when blood spills on the operating table it will be theirs. He starts to itch within his own skin, the need crawling around inside of him like a cockroach, and one day when he stares down at the latest dead technician he realizes he doesn’t know anything but the violence, the pain, the empty horrors of his own mind. He doesn’t resist as they tranquilize him, grab him and strap him to the chair, force the plastic guard into his mouth.

 

He tries to think of his name and he can’t.

 

He tries to think of when he last tried to think of a name and he can’t remember.

 

Before the newest technician even fixes the electrodes to his head he begins to scream.

 

* * *

 

The first night away from Azzano passed like a fever: slowly and painfully, then intensely and full of agony, then quickly and uncomfortably all at once.

 

Bucky couldn’t look Steve in the eye for longer than it took to stutter monosyllabic answers out through his swollen throat, and he flinched away from Steve’s further offers to help him walk even, as he stumbled through each step. Without looking, even with his eyes screwed shut, Bucky knew that Steve had that hurt pout on his face, the one Bucky probably wore every time Steve had brushed off a beating from a scrappy alley fight.

 

Part of him was grateful, so damn glad Steve came to save him from that god-awful place like some damn avenging angel, all broad and tall and chiselled like a statue.

 

The rest of him hated seeing Steve. Hated seeing him here, in the dirt and the muck, holding that stupid prop shield that couldn’t stop a stray knife, let alone a bullet.

 

Bucky's body ached with the effort of staying awake and upright, but he knew if he slept he would wake back in that room, back on that table, and he wasn't ready for Steve to be a dream yet. Even this new, shiny Steve who looked like a movie star and smiled a little too long.

 

So they shuffled along at a sedate pace—the heavily wounded riding in the backs of the trucks they'd pilfered from the compound, their muffled moans passing through the inky black air—until someone collapsed and they called it a night, setting up a sparse camp in the middle of the woods along the path, some of the men volunteering for the first watch.

 

He and Steve settled against the rough bark of a few trees that were facing each other, Steve's helmet resting in the mossy grass like an ancient relic.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve asked, plain and simple. No judgement, no pressure.

 

“No,” Bucky answered flatly.

 

There was nothing that had happened to him that was worth sharing. He was here with Steve, and that was what he needed to focus on, even though his brain still hadn't figured out this new Steve, refusing to sort out itself until it understood the new core component of its existence. Steve and Bucky lived out of each other's pockets, and so he could not fully return to the world of the living until he reconciled this stranger with the Steve he knew.

 

“I was so glad, so relieved,” Steve said quietly, after a while had passed. “I thought— _Jesus_ , Buck, all those men and they didn't know where you were and— and I thought—”

 

“You thought I was dead.” _And you should have stayed thinking that_ , Bucky didn't add, _you should have stayed away from this place, you should not have come. Not for me, god, I'm not worth dragging you into this. I don't want them to change you the way they changed me._ But Steve was already changed—physically, at least—and Bucky still felt like he was sitting next to Steve’s soul in a stranger's body, like he was seeing Steve's eyes under a new face.

 

“But you aren't,” Steve added softly, like it was a prayer, his hands twitching where they rested on his knees.

 

 _But aren't I?_ Bucky thought helplessly. _Aren't I?_

 

“Guess so,” he said, too bitterly. And then with false bravado, “Takes more than a few goes through the wringer to knock me down, Rogers. Maybe not as many as it’d take you now, but a helluva lot more than the Germans can dish out.”

 

This was the right thing to say, the Bucky thing to say, because Steve's lips twitched and turned up around the edges. And it was Steve's smile, not the stranger's, so then things seemed normal again, just for that night. It was just the two of them pressed against trees and watching each other's backs. So Bucky could close his eyes. He could inhale the stale forest air and know that they had this one moment where everything was as it was. He could trust that Steve would remain unchanged at his core, and that no matter what happened Bucky would always, always know him, even before he knew himself.

 

* * *

 

_“No, you listen, I don’t give a fuck about who that man is; he could be a Soviet assassin for all I care. He’s the one who flew the damn plane full of nukes into the ocean, and he deserves a lot better than you locking him up in some white-coat room for ‘observation’. He’s done more for his country than you’ll ever see in your lifetime. He deserves to rest.”_

 

* * *

 

Someone who is not named Steve Rogers stands in the middle of Times Square and screams.

 

* * *

 

“Listen,” Bucky said. He was forever asking after Steve to listen and see sense, and Steve usually listened. He listened and then usually ignored whatever it was that Bucky had said and gone on to do the stupid thing anyways.

 

This wasn't any different, so Steve stopped, turned, and looked Bucky defiantly in the eye.

 

“You'll find another gig, Stevie, honest. But you can't keep prowling around like a soaked cat out here; ain't nobody gonna look twice at anybody in this mess.” And maybe Bucky was right because it _was_ raining buckets, and the two of them were getting steadily drowned in the downpour. Steve could hardly feel his toes already. “We can head out tomorrow if it's better. We can canvas the whole damn neighbourhood if none of those morons in our block take you on.”

 

Steve was not normally convinced so easily, but this was Bucky, his best friend Bucky, out in the cold and the rain and looking at Steve like he'd hang the moon for him if he could. And if Steve asked Bucky to help him apply to every shop on their street in this shitty weather he would do it. Because when Steve did stupid things Bucky always did them too, even if he grumbled like a rotten complainer the whole way through. And God knew Steve would do stupid things for Bucky too, but Bucky never asked. Mostly cause Bucky was clever enough to keep his nose out of trouble that wasn't Steve-related. Still didn't stop them both from getting into the thick of things anyways.

 

So Steve said alright, sure, and had shrugged off Bucky's offer to walk him home. Bucky had given him a frown then, as though testing to see if Steve was telling the truth.

 

“What? You don’t trust me?” he retorted.

 

“I don't trust you not t’be a stupid punk,” Bucky snapped, maybe a little tenser than normal, then dropped his gaze and scuffed his shoe on the glossy pavement. “So don't you come cryin’ to me if you catch your death out here, Rogers,” he warned. “I won't have it.”

 

“Hey, you know I'd come haunt ya, Buck,” Steve said, slugging Bucky on the arm lightly. Bucky was warm to the touch, always was. “On your dates with dames and everything. You ain't getting rid of me so easy.”

 

“Yeah,” said Bucky thoughtfully, peering out from under his damp lashes to look at Steve. He was smiling fully now— the crooked, boyish grin that Steve so loved to be the cause of. “Guess not.”

 

* * *

 

He sits very still, white-knuckled fingers clenching at the edge of the bed, focussing on the chestnut roots that are emerging from the scalp. The sleeves are pushed up, the bare arms covered in angry pink lines from where he'd scratched at them unthinkingly in his sleep hard enough to draw blood. But if he just looks at the brown hair, just stares at the roots, maybe he can convince himself that somewhere underneath his exterior a person still exists.

 

He's not even sure if he wants to be Bucky Barnes anymore. Bucky Barnes had lost everything, and what he hadn't lost he'd given willingly to the war. He isn’t sure if there is anything left of him to salvage from the wreckage.

 

He doesn't want to be someone who has had everything in them torn away, but he doesn't know how to be whole either.

 

A knock sounds at the door.

 

“Come in.” James Barnes tugs the sleeves back down in a jerky motion, musses a hand through his hair.

 

Natasha Romanoff steps in. Her hair is red again, this time cut to shoulder length. He’s seen it blonde, brunette, and, on one spectacular occasion, bright turquoise. How many identities she has shed, he wonders, how many layers of the cocoon she does wear to defend herself against the world? She told him about a few of her past jobs before she had left on her last mission, told him that truth was a matter of circumstance before showing him the plastic license that declared her to be Natalie Rushman. Maybe she was trying to tell him it was possible to live life not knowing who you really were. James isn’t sure if he believes her, regardless.

 

“SHIELD approved the new apartment. You'll be out within the week, James.”

 

He nods curtly, brushing a hand over the stubble on his chin. “Thanks,” he adds, because he's not supposed to be rude to ladies.

 

“They want you to keep seeing the SHIELD psychologist, but it's only a heavy recommendation at this point. If you wanted to get back into field work, it'd be mandatory. As it is...”

 

As it was, James could hardly hold himself together long enough to convince some fancy government shrinks he was stable enough to leave his enforced confinement. As it was, James couldn’t sleep without feeling like chunks of him were still frozen in the ice of the Arctic ocean.

 

“I'm not looking to go back into the field,” he says firmly. “Thanks, Natasha.” She doesn't seem convinced, but he doesn't expect her to be. Natasha is perceptive to a fault. She understands more than most, and this is why she has been assigned as his handler despite her spotty availability. He and Natasha have reached an understanding: she doesn't make him talk and he doesn't make her leave.

 

“Fury argued hard for this for you. It's him you should be thanking.”

 

James raises an eyebrow at her. “So tell him I said thanks for me, will ya,” he says sardonically.

 

Her eyes flash with amusement for a second, but it's shuttered over quickly. “Sure, James. I will.” Then she hesitates, just long enough for him to notice. “They're going through with the exhibit at the Smithsonian. It premiers in nine months.”

 

James doesn't let the bitterness twist his face; he smooths out his expression in a practiced relaxation of his facial muscles. “Alright. Thanks anyways,” he says, and this time it's dismissive. He focusses on the ceiling, making his stare carefully casual.

 

“They wouldn't change their minds on the new addition, either. Said people would be expecting it.”

 

“People expect too much,” he says.

 

Natasha joins him on the bed, her thigh almost pressed against his. “Take care, James,” she tells him softly, her hand touching his knee lightly enough that he doesn't flinch from it. “I don't know when I'll be by to see you again, but promise me you'll be there when I do.”

 

“Cross my heart,” he replies blithely. “Not like I've got anything better to be doing.” Their gazes lock, and Natasha nods in acceptance.

  
She leaves, the door clicking shut behind her. They'd left it unlocked three weeks ago, he knows, just to see. He hadn't gone anywhere, hadn't bothered trying. He had nowhere to go. So he must have passed the test if they were finally unhooking his prison leash. Although, as far as prison cells go—as he had told a stoic, hard-faced Nick Fury—this place was pretty swanky.

 

Full amenities and all the future had to offer beat a HYDRA cell any day. His room really was fairly nice and it had lots of space. Notable elements included: the too soft bed, the desk and chair that were bolted to the floor, and the great window view that was only dampened by the fact that he couldn’t open the bulletproof glass for some fresh air.

 

So he eats and he sleeps and he shits and he breathes, and all the while the outside world is still spinning on its axis. But to James it is not the same as the clean and untouched room that he now lives in; it is only a past he can no longer reclaim. The Smithsonian doesn't matter in the scheme of things. He doesn't need a photograph or an exhibit or a documentary to be told he's still living in hell.

 

* * *

 

Smooth, uncalloused hands trace the ink of the crisp newsprint, trace the same letters over and over, lingering on the bowls and serifs of the capitals.

 

 

There is no comment from the homecoming hero, only the blurry mobile shot of a blond-haired figure barefoot in Times Square. The hands let the paper flutter free, where it dances through the air before landing in a sewage drain, murky water blurring the headline until it is no longer recognizable. The bottom of the page proclaims the limited opening of the Captain America exhibit nine months from now at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, with a special section dedicated to the life of Captain Bucky Barnes.

 

A grey ballcap is pulled down over cold blue eyes, and a man disappears into the masses.

 

The name from the paper is familiar. He knows the name. The brain supplies pictures of a charming, dimpled smile, the feeling of a warm arm wrapped around the shoulders. Nothing he hasn't recalled multiple times before. But the brain insists. It provides the audio: “Hey, punk,” and “You complete moron,” and “I'm with you.” It jars him, makes him duck into an alley to count his breaths, to tell his lungs to fill themselves deep and slow. To hear that voice is a rare thing; he wants to hold it, to keep it inside of him and not let it slip away.

  
Hands plaster themselves on the brick wall, the pale fingers splayed out. He watches them tremble, battles the reflex to pull them into fists. He does not think about back alley tussles, about skillful, calloused hands placing delicate bandages on the skin; he ignores the words that pound through his skull— _I had him on the ropes_. He closes his eyes and he sees white and blue and _blue_.

 

The brain— his brain, struggles to internalize the new information. Years of being alone, comforted by the knowledge that the spectres of the brain were merely that: spectres. Now James Barnes is alive, but he is still alone, because James Barnes is a hero and Bucky Barnes deserves better than a broken thing after seventy years in the ice. Because even though the brain remembers Barnes, Barnes surely won't remember him, not anymore, not as he is now.

  
Seventy years later and Bucky Barnes is alive again, but Steve Rogers is still seventy years dead and no exhibit will change that.

 

* * *

 

It was a rough day, and there had been too many casualties, more bodies than anyone wanted to think about. The circles under their eyes were made darker by the clouds of failure and despair, and Steve felt a tightness in his chest, so reminiscent of his asthma that he expected Bucky to tell him to _slow down_ , c’mon _breathe,_  Rogers.

 

The men here were running on pure adrenalin, spread thin as paper on the watch, so the Commandos had stepped in to help alleviate the burden as they were passing through.

 

Steve and Bucky were making a pass down the trench when they found a young soldier, alert and awake, keeping vigil with the silent sobs that shook his entire body. He was clutching a pair of dog tags. Steve felt the strong urge to look away, but he watched as Bucky strode up, undeterred, and gripped the soldier right by the shoulders.

 

“Someone dies on your watch, you don't just give up,” Bucky said harshly, shaking the kid so hard that Steve could swear he could hear teeth rattling. “You pick yourself up. You get up off your ass and pull through; not for yourself, but because someone else out here is counting on you to watch their back. You keep it together for them. You wanna fall apart, that's fine, but you do that on your own time, y’hear me?” The kid—and he was only a kid, barely even legal—widened his eyes, surprise stealing the grief from his features for a brief second. “Say ‘yessir, sarge’,” Bucky instructed, and the boy repeated the words, sounding like he believed them.

 

Bucky released him and gave him a shove. “Go take a break. Get some sleep. We've got this.” He tilted his head in Steve's direction. The boy ran off, leaving Steve and Bucky to huddle around in the dirt, Bucky smoking his cigar and blowing the smoke over the edge of the trench in the areas where it grew shallow.

 

After being relieved by second watch, Bucky must've caught wind of Steve's thoughts, because he said, “You can't save everyone, Steve. You can't. You'll drive yourself mad if you go thinkin’ that. You keep the weight of the world on those shoulders and it'll crush you, I'm telling you.”

 

And Steve listened to this carefully, thinking back on what Bucky had said to that soldier, but deep down he was already resolving to ignore it.

 

* * *

 

_“He's obsessed. And Barnes is in no condition for visitors, Nick.”_

 

_“Barnes is being released in two weeks, whereafter he is going to track him down and interrogate him anyways. This way we get to control the situation and keep it from getting out of hand. Get him to agree to the Initiative, let him ask his questions. Supervised visitation. There's no harm, no foul, and maybe he’ll finally find some damn peace with it.”_

 

* * *

 

The mission was this:

 

Kill two targets. Make it look like an accident. Steal the briefcase with the contents that match this photograph. Leave no trace of yourself behind. Return to base and go back into cryo.

 

The Asset is removed from cryo. It is given the minimum amount of recovery time before it is handled into a new room. The Asset is outfitted with weapons and gear, the functionalities of which are explained to him. It is given a motorbike and a location. It is given a briefing.

 

It is asked to repeat the instructions. It repeats them. They give it nutrition and water, which it consumes.

  
It is shown the door. It leaves, and they know it will come back, because it has nowhere else to go.

 

 

What happened was this:

 

A car goes off the road and hits a tree.

 

A man on a motorbike pulls up to the wrecked vehicle. He checks the trunk for the briefcase, checks that the contents match the briefing.

 

He stalks forward and wrenches off the driver door with one hand. It peels off like the skin of a fruit: soft and easy. Smoke is pouring out of the engine of the car, so dark it is nearly indiscernible against the night sky.

  
Inside the car are the targets: a man and a woman. The face of the woman matches the briefing. She is already dead, blood matting her hair to her neck and forehead. The face of the man matches— it matches—

 

* * *

 

The mission was this:

 

Kill two targets. Make it look like an accident.

 

 

What happened was this:

 

“ _S-steve_? Is... is that really... you?" and— “How... are you... _alive_?” and—

 

The sickening crack of a neck being broken with one hand, the end of the tortured breaths of an old man, the elimination of the remaining target. Blood drips onto the dirt beneath the feet, thick and wet.

 

The targets are dead. The Asset has completed that objective of the mission. He does not feel accomplished; he never does, it never occurs to him to. The mission is only something that must be done, and done as efficiently as possible. There is no room for variation or error. But he feels. He feels something. A response to the twisted neck and the dripping blood and the name Steve. The body responds to the name Steve.

 

There is a long, deafening silence that is broken only by the dying flames of the burning car. A man stands before two broken bodies and he matches— and he _feels—_

 

There is only ever the mission: the objectives, the protocols, and the completion. But there is no protocol for the serum in the veins of the Asset, which was developed to be stronger and faster, to protect its host from all possible physical defects. To protect a good man, not a perfect one.

 

Time has no meaning for the Asset or the serum. They both work at the pace that they do, and they do not stop or tire until the deed is done. A laundry list of thankless tasks to mend a broken man, to shape the century. All it takes is one connection, one small objective completed for the mission to move forward.

 

Something, somewhere, snaps into place within the brain. _Objective_ _complete_ , whispers the blood in his veins.

 

So then— a voice, rough and confused:

 

" _Howard_?”

 

* * *

 

The mission was this:

 

Leave no trace. Return to cryo.

 

 

What happened was this:

 

The name Steve and an abandoned motorbike; an open briefcase with untouched contents, and a set of heavy, bloody shoeprints staggering away into the woods; two trembling hands clutching a curved metal shield, and the end of an Asset.

 

* * *

 

A suspicious double homicide is ruled as a likely accident with no suspects. The plates on the motorbike found at the scene lead to nothing. The driver wore gloves. Nothing was stolen and there is no firm evidence that this was a deliberately staged hit.

 

There is a young man dragged screaming from a police station, he has to be sedated—

 

An orphan is made, regardless. The papers print a touching article with a meaningful headline: Howard and Maria Stark Die in Car Accident. There are no witnesses and no suspects. The Starks, who have left their legacy on the world forever, leave no doubt that America owes them both a great debt. The Starks, who live on through their son, an only child—

 

There is a double funeral where there are two unclaimed seats, and somewhere in old archives deep below the earth, deeper than bones or prayers, Peggy Carter helps a grief-stricken young man sort through old HYDRA case files, their hands shaking together, both of them searching for closure.

 

She wears a brave face. The rims under her eyes match her lipstick. She does not look like a woman who has lost the last of her living comrades from a war long dead. But as she watches the frantic, manic movements of the boy before her, she remembers another death from another time, another terrible loss, and it is then that she feels well and truly old beyond her years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment and/or subscribe! Hope you're not all on the floor after this chapter...
> 
> Also, reminder that I'm on tumblr at [@daisyridlay](http://daisyridlay.tumblr.com)!


	3. A Good Man

Bucky Barnes has a visitor. He arrives, announced, wearing a bespoke grey suit and a pair of expensive shades. He greets Bucky by the name like an old friend.

 

“Did nobody tell you my name is James,” he asks flatly.

 

“They might’ve,” Anthony ‘call me Tony’ Stark says, removing his sunglasses and letting his gaze wander around the sparse room. “I see Fury cheaped out on the accommodations again.”

 

“I’m moving out tomorrow. Got my own place.”

 

“Hmph. That was not something that they told me. Shouldn’t have signed the thing, probably. Pepper's gonna be annoyed that I signed the thing. Could have tracked you down without all this trouble at your new place. Well, even wealthy people can’t always be choosers, y’know?” He waves a dismissive hand like he expects James to agree.

  
James stares at him. He had never talked much with Howard, but the impression he had gotten was not one that he’d cared much for. His impression of the son seemed to be going the same way: someone who was used to throwing money at his problems and being ridiculously obnoxious. Natasha had shown him the videos of Stark flying around as ‘Iron Man’, and it seemed to James like exactly the sort of flashy thing Howard would want to try. Maybe not in the hero role, though. Only in the celebrity sense. Howard had outsourced the heroism to Captain America, after all.

 

“Anyways, I want you to know you've got options. Option one: stay in whatever lame apartment that SHIELD's got set up for you—which is probably bugged up to its ears in spyware—or option two: me. Or, as I also like to call it, the better option.”

 

“Which is?”

 

“You move into my lovely, technologically advanced, state-of-the-art secured Stark Industries tower, and you enjoy the spacious, luxurious living I can offer you free of charge.” Tony spreads his arms out, nodding at James.

 

James is neither convinced nor impressed. “Free of charge, huh. Don't remember SHIELD saying how much was rent was gonna be, but I’m pretty sure they ain't charging me either.”

 

“Yes, but will SHIELD offer you free catering? Didn't think so. My heart goes out to anyone who hasn't enjoyed good Chinese food. I'm a big giver like that.”

 

He's still not sure why Tony is here. Some misplaced sense of guilt, perhaps. Or pity. “I didn't even know Howard. He didn't bother to come to see me when I... when I put on the costume. We only met once or twice.”

 

That puts a stressed edge on Stark’s megawatt smile. “Yeah, dad didn't really give a shit about anything that wasn't a project of his or didn't have something in it for him.” Tony slides into the desk chair, crossing his ankles out in front of him. He taps his fingers on the desk in a rapid movement. “So what do you say, Jamie? Wanna come live in the tower? Out from under SHIELD's big brother gaze? Be a real boy?”

 

James doesn't answer immediately, so Tony goes on, “Hmmm. You know what? I'll give you a minute. To think over my exceedingly generous offer.” Tony waggles a finger at him and then whips out his mobile phone and starts to poke away, not waiting for a reply.

 

James isn't sure what he wants for himself at this point. He had promised Natasha that he would be here when she returned, and where he was didn't really matter so much. The only real benefit he can discern from Tony's offer is that SHIELD won't be able to get at him as easily if they change their minds about setting him loose. James only trusts Tony about as much as he'd trusted his father Howard, but the younger Stark seems genuine enough despite whatever other hidden shortcomings are lurking behind the offer of hospitality.

 

Tony is blessedly quiet while James thinks, fiddling on the phone device, his eyes only flickering up every so often to check on James.

 

Minutes tick past. Tony is unfailingly patient, but James is not surprised. He knows about waiting, and Tony seems to be of a similar vein. He knows not to push.

 

“Alright,” James tells him. “If you can clear it with SHIELD and Fury, I'll accept.” Tony stands and offers his hand. They shake on it.

 

“Glad to have you on board, Cap!”

 

James flinches at the name, and Tony drops his hand like it burns him.

 

“Right,” Stark says quickly, turning his face away. “So, 10 AM sharp tomorrow, pack all your meager worldly belongings and be prepared for brunch with the missus. And by the missus I mean Pepper, who is dying to meet you. I mean, uh, not dying literally but. You know. See you then. Don’t be late.” Tony waves goodbye and flees through the exit. James watches the door close and feels tired.

 

Not less than an hour later, the phone James had been given by Natasha vibrates on the desk, startling him. James checks the message then dumps the phone on top of a book on the desk.

 

 

 

James takes a deep breath and tries to believe her.

 

* * *

 

The end of the mission was always the worst. It was when they were tired and bloody, the horrors starting to seep into their subconsciouses, decay taking root in their dreams in preparation for their late evening bloom. Bucky hated dusk for just that reason. The sooner daybreak came, he told himself, the better off they'd be. There had never been any sunlight in Azzano.

 

A roaring fire was lit after they set camp, and they sat around it, sharing drinks and warding off the void of nightmares with idle chatter.

 

“A full feast or a pretty dame,” Bucky suggested at some point.

 

“Any kind of food?” James Falsworth asked thoughtfully.

 

“Any type you want for both, Monty,” Bucky agreed with a smirk, and they all laughed a little except for Steve, who gave them the disapproving shake of his head that they knew he didn't mean.

 

“At this point I'd choose clean boots over a dame,” Dugan retorted, stomping his muddy shoes on the ground. They were about one misadventure from falling to bits.

 

“No one wants to hear about your feet, Dum Dum,” moaned Gabe Jones. He was whittling at a piece of wood with his knife, trying to carve an animal out of it. “But I pick the food. I can't even remember the smell of my mother's cooking anymore.” There were nods of agreement all around at the idea of home cooked meals.

 

“If you had to choose,” said Jim Morita, flipping his own knife around in his hand. “Lose an arm or a leg. Pretend that you don't need to get away after; you get sent home, maybe. What's more important. Which do you protect?”

 

“Leg,” Steve said. He spoke simultaneously with Bucky who said, “Arm.” They stopped and looked at each other.

 

“You need to be able to run,” Steve said mildly.

 

“I need to be able to shoot,” Bucky fired back, not missing a beat. “I could get by on one leg.”

 

“You could hop by, maybe,” Dugan said, shaking his head. Jacques Dernier got up and mimed hopping around on one leg and toppling over, pulling an exaggerated expression of shocked pain to make them all laugh.

 

Steve was still in disagreement, though, and it was written all over his face. Bucky thought back to all those winters where Steve had been too sick to walk, and matched the memories to the stubborn expression on Steve's face. Maybe to Steve, who had always run last in school sports, it was more important. Steve was always running places, mostly towards trouble, and Bucky was always a pace behind, keeping an eye on his six, fists or bullets ready.

 

“You shouldn't give up your mobility. You can do plenty with one good arm,” Steve argued.

 

“Can't run everywhere,” added Bucky, after a pause. “I'd rather have one leg than have to rely on one of you chumps to give me a hand for the rest of my life.” That got the expected response: a few scattered snorts and good-natured protests, breaking up the minor tension.

 

“Heart or mind,” Gabe said next. “What do you get? How do you choose which one?”

 

“You get half a person,” Morita said, and Dernier nodded agreement as he sat back down.

 

“Heart,” said Steve and Bucky together immediately.

 

Bucky held Steve’s surprised gaze for a minute before Steve looked back to the group and cleared his throat.

 

“Think about it: the heart of a person, that's who you are at the core, isn't it? That's what makes you up as a person, not the memories or the facts. The feelings. What you feel, how you feel, even if you don't know why. We love our mothers before we're even born, so why shouldn't this be any different? You don't need your mind to be made up to love someone. If you have the heart,” he finished solemnly, “the rest isn't far behind. Even if it gets lost."

 

The fire flickered, casting strange lights and shadows against Steve’s face. Bucky watched the golden hues dance across Steve's hair and eyes, and when he and Steve caught gazes again Bucky gave a tiny half-smile.

 

Morita pulled out his flask. “To not falling too far behind.”

 

They echoed the sentiment, raising their flasks, full or not, and drank.

 

Later, Steve gave Bucky's shoulder a fond squeeze before he got up to patrol. Watching him go, Bucky thought to himself how he’d honestly have to lose his mind before anyone could ever be carved out of his heart.

 

* * *

 

Morning arrives and James has one backpack full of things. A few novels, two sets of clothing, the knife he had on him went he nosedived into the ocean. An old sketchbook full of ruined drawings. James sorts through the items again. He knows he’s stalling.

 

Forcing himself to move, he splashes some water on his face in the bathroom and dries himself with the towel, his movements sluggish. He takes a last look in the mirror at his freshly-shorn hair. It is chestnut brown from root to tip.

 

Someone guides him to the exit. He follows until he sees Stark arguing with Fury in a closed-off conference room, and then he veers off course. The guide does a double take but isn't in time to stop him from wrenching the glass door open and silencing the discussion.

 

“I thought this was sorted,” James says without preamble as he enters the room.

 

“It _was_ ,” they both answer, not breaking eye contact with each other, the same frustrated emphasis placed on the second word.

 

“Car's at the private exit,” Tony tells James. “Happy's waiting for us. I was just on my way to pick you up when someone dragged me against my will into a ridiculous argument.” Here, he stops to roll his eyes at Fury, who merely looks bored.

 

James assumes Happy is the name of the driver and not some strange futuristic slang. “Why isn't it sorted,” he presses, since apparently his first question wasn't enough to prompt an explanation.

 

“Stark here seems to think he's got a measure of control over the documents he signed and agreed to.”

 

“I told you: no leadership, no deal,” Tony insists, fidgeting. “You don't have anyone better equipped than me to lead a team of superheroes.”

 

Fury narrows his eyes. “I don’t think you want to hear my response to that. Captain Barnes here is more qualified than you are, Stark. Flying around in a metal costume doesn’t give you rights to leadership.”

 

“Don’t look at me,” James says. “I’m retired, what with being over ninety years old and all.”

 

“I knew you had a sense of humour in there somewhere!” Tony jabs a finger at him accusingly. “You’re tall, dark, and sarcastic. I’ve got your number, Barnes.”

 

James decides to humour him. “You forgot ‘handsome’.”

 

“More my department,” Tony says briskly, preening. “Well, if there’s no more to say for now, I think Barnes and I are going to be on our merry way. Things to do, brunch to eat, new technology to teach to the elderly.” He makes a break for the door, and Fury doesn’t stop him, so James follows Stark out.

 

* * *

 

“SHIELD was going to pressure you into signing all sorts of contracts so they could have their PR specialists handle your return from the dead,” Tony says later, gesturing vaguely in the air to represent some big floozy celebration. “But I put a big wall down in front of that. Last thing you need at this point is the public hounding at you to be some paragon of truth, justice, and the all-American way. Pepper figures we can squeeze in an interview or two with some trusted friends, only if you want, and we can sort out whatever direction you want to take this. If you want to be a ninety year old hermit—and that's perfectly fine by me, by the way—you can, but I recommend living it up a little. People dig the whole war hero angle.”

 

James listens to the chatter, processing some of it, but mostly he stares out the tinted windows at the passing scenery. The streets are so alive, full of people and traffic, all of it loud and vibrant. So many colours that you could fill a thousand galleries and still never capture a tenth of the vastness of humanity. He can imagine Steve's hands itching to draw the sharp skylines, to press the colourful passers-by into a page.

 

“You know if you weren’t serious about the whole retirement business I could totally make you a really cool suit of armor. Minus the stars and stripes of the other thing you used to wear. Something stealthy like a ninja. Do you know what ninjas are? You don’t. You don’t? You were a sniper, weren’t you? You should know.”

 

“I don’t know about missions at this point,” James says, in the brief pause where Tony stops to inhale oxygen. “I don’t think I’m good for field duty yet. Fury wasn’t going to clear me unless I kept up with therapy.”

 

“Buddy, none of us are really good for field duty. That’s why we’re the best at it. We're the only ones crazy enough to do it. Therapy’s all fine and good for regular people, but they don’t get it, y’know? They don’t know.”

 

James thinks of how he gets along better with Natasha than any of the shrinks they gave him, and how the Howlies went from simple comradeship to trusted brotherhood over the course of the war. But Steve had been the best of humanity, even before the serum, even despite his insistent lack of self-preservation. The serum had only given Steve the vessel he had needed to propel himself to the frontlines, gave him the clout he needed to go on field missions. That and the fact that he never listened, storming Azzano with nothing but a toy shield and the costume on his back.

 

“And we’re here! Tower sweet tower. Mi casa es su casa.”

 

Stark Tower is glassy and polished, like a shrine built to the grandness of this new era. It stretches towards the sky, the concrete proof of Howard's legacy. Tony lets him stand and stare at it a little before ushering them both through a side door, starting up a monologue about the construction and design of the building.

 

“We’ve furnished a whole floor for you with the basics, but you can page through some catalogues and let JARVIS know what you like so we can get some designers in to finish the job. We went kind of old-timey on the furniture. Pepper's idea; she said you'd be more comfortable?” Tony asks hopefully.

 

It's hard to swallow. “Yeah. Sounds fine. Good.” James hadn't thought about having his own living space, let alone considered all the decisions that would come with it. At SHIELD it was easy because the cell was already done up, and there had been no need to personalize it when it was only supposed to be temporary.

 

Tony checks his watch. “We're not late yet! We can skip your floor and go straight to brunch. You only have one bag anyways.”

 

They pass through a few security checks where Tony has him stop so he can be added into the system, and eventually they end up in an elevator that looks just like the tower: polished and shiny. The doors slide shut. James takes a breath.

 

“Top floor, JARVIS!” Tony says vibrantly, and James is startled to hear the vocal confirmation that emerges from the walls.

 

“JARVIS is my electronic butler. He's an AI. They told you about AIs, right? Artificial intelligence? You can ask JARVIS for whatever you need and he'll help you out. Like Google, but better than Google because I invented it.”

 

“They told me about Google,” James says hesitantly. “And computers and robots. I have a mobile phone.”

 

“Really? They gave you a phone? Does it even have WiFi capabilities?”

 

“Natasha Romanoff did.” If Natasha trusted Tony then it was probably acceptable to tell him this much. “And yes.” Natasha had showed him how to use Google, but James was still more comfortable with reading books. They felt firm and real in-between his fingers, unlike the slippery sleekness of the mobile phone.

 

“Hmph. Well, it's probably not bugged then. By anyone other than her, I mean. Give JARVIS the number and we'll put you on our plan. The awesome reception unlimited everything plan. I was going to give you a new one, but then someone would have to teach you how to use it all over again, so.” Tony shrugs.

 

James pulls out the phone, unsure what to do, but Tony is already out of the elevator. So James pauses only to look about at the reflective walls one last time before exiting, tucking the phone back into his jacket pocket.

 

Natasha had said to keep the phone charged and on him at all times in case of emergency, and she had compared it to a long distance walkie-talkie that required plugging into outlets to refill the energy. James had replied that he knew how batteries and normal phones worked, he wasn't an idiot, and she seemed pleased to have him snapping at her. She’d also put her current number in his phone, but told him that she changed so often there was little point in putting his in hers. She'd apparently memorized all her contacts.

 

“Pepper! Lovely light of my life. I have our brunch guest. Barnes, this is Pepper Potts, my beautifully powerful significant other. Pepper, this is double-o seven, also known as James, James Barnes.”

 

Pepper Potts is a statuesque woman with vibrant orange hair and matching painted lips. She reminds James of Agent Carter, what with her commanding presence and unnaturally high heeled shoes. She greets Tony with a kiss to the cheek before turning a warm smile on James.

 

“It's nice to meet you, James.” She offers a hand to shake. Her grip is firm and unthreatening.

 

“Nice to meet you,” James echoes. The rest of the meal dissolves into casual conversation between Pepper and Tony, the former directing the flow of chatter back towards James every so often to check in. James nods in the right places and eats a small sample of everything she offers him. It turns out that breakfast foods don’t change much, even after seventy years.

 

* * *

 

The target is Jasper Sitwell. He lives in twenty-floor building with little to no security. He's smart: he doesn't keep to a routine and he's exceedingly paranoid. He visits a different coffee shop on his way to work every day and the route always changes. But the people he meets—the high ranking politicians, the flashy agents who are the public face of SHIELD—they do have routines, and it is here that Sitwell's cultivated paranoia comes undone.

 

It would be easy to get him in his apartment. One bullet and a glimpse through the curtains would be enough to finish the job. But this particular business of death requires subtlety. A ghost leaves no traces on the walls, no footsteps on the floor. A ghost leaves his target the victim of accident, not incident.

 

So the ghost waits. Waiting calms the body. Being patient almost always rewards itself.

 

Jasper Sitwell talks with many people about unimportant things. Notes are scribbled along the backs of diner napkins anyways. No intel is bad intel. Spotty memory allows for the careful organization of facts and figures in a pilfered notebook.

 

Priority: check the possession of the notebook. One thing to be remembered when the mind forgets all else. The notebook means the mission, and the mission must always be completed.

 

Mission objective: watch public luncheons and closed-door meetings through the scope of the rifle, make notes, and wait.

 

(He's not sure when he learned to read lips. Whether it was a skill honed before or after the birth of the Asset. He tells himself he has no preference either way: the skill is merely another tool in his repertoire of abilities. He mutes the pulsing response of ebony and fire through his mind.)

 

There is only the mission, yes. The mission, which upon completion ends with the metal bullets of his own gun embedded in his skull, as many times as it takes to drag his protesting body into the hands of death. The last life these hands will take before they pass into the hands of the reaper. The end of the story.

 

Now normally the monster dies before the villain does, but the story will make an exception in this case. As many chapters as it takes to defeat the heads of evil, and when it is done he will remove the last living evidence of HYDRA on the earth: he will sign the Winter Soldier’s epilogue with his own tombless grave.

 

* * *

 

Hands clenched for something that was not there, lungs overflowing with the scream that should not, could not be let out. There was the vertigo of the moving train and the feeling of his soul being yanked out as he watched the body disappear into the snowy tombs of the mountains.

  
Only the body was his body, and the death was his death; the scream he heard was not his voice at all but someone else's, and he _ached—_

 

Captain America woke in a cold sweat. He could feel the tremble of his body rooting him to the ground, stringing him up from head to toe, spinning and tumbling him with the earth below his feet. The two-person tent was empty save for his own sharp breaths. The shield lay next to him, his rifle propped on top.

 

He didn't scream in his sleep anymore: he gasped and he choked on the heart in his throat, fighting against the sick swell of it that threatened to consume him.

 

Checking through the tent flap revealed daylight. Someone had let him sleep through his watch. Probably Dugan or Morita. He couldn't remember who was supposed to be before him. Shuttering the fear from his face, he stretched out and stepped into the sun.

 

“We'll be back by dinner if we're lucky,” Gabe was saying, shuffling through some maps that were spread across his lap.

 

“Morning, Captain,” Morita greeted calmly. He was poking through some of their remaining rations, a lit cigar dangling from his lips.

 

Their Captain grunted reply and set to collapsing his tent. The other Commandos shuffled about as he circled, leaving him a wide berth.

 

“Agent Carter is meeting us back at camp for briefing,” Jim went on. “They've finally nailed the headquarters of the Red Skull. We’re back with the cold mountains in a few days.”

 

“Carter, huh,” Captain America huffed. A lopsided grin tilted his face. “Figured she'd be the one to bring the good news.” The shield glinted in the daylight as he set it down next to his bag, polished and perfect in contrast to the black gunmetal of his rifle. He gave the barrel of the gun a light stroke.

 

He pretended not to notice the dark looks that the Howlies exchanged at his reaction. He walked over to sling his tent into the truck bed.

 

“We've got your back,” Dugan said quietly, once the straps of their packs had settled on their shoulders. “We've always got your back, Barnes.”

 

“I know.” Captain America smiled, and it was all wrong, carved of bitter loss and dry revenge, too fierce and too savage to belong to a hero. “Just don't go following me down, y’hear?”

 

* * *

 

 " _A dozen dead agents in the last twenty five years under mysterious circumstances. Not counting those who died in other agencies. Purported accidents. Food poisonings, yacht drownings—even animal attacks, Jesus. You're sure it's him?”_

 

_“There's no other explanation. Sitwell's death fits the bill. Surveillance places the Soldier in close range proximity up to three weeks prior.”_

 

_“He's been silent for years. Why act now? What brings a ghost back to haunt the living?”_

 

_“What always haunts a ghost? Unfinished business."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly a bridge chapter, so you can expect more action next week. Also, today is the sad anniversary of the Winter Soldier killing Tony's parents yikes. Speculation on future events is welcomed, please leave a comment and/or subscribe! 
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [@daisyridlay](http://daisyridlay.tumblr.com) :)


	4. Ghosts

Three days later, Tony calls James down to his laboratory.

 

“Alright, alright,” Tony says, after James has grown impatient of the stalling and demanded an explanation. “If you didn't want to learn about propulsion thrusters and hypotheticals all you had to do was say so! No need to get all murder gaze-y.”

 

Funny. James gives him the real murder gaze, the one that sent Nazis fleeing from him and towards the gunfire of his teammates in desperation, and Tony nods a little.

 

“JARVIS, note to self: threats from scary assassins that come to live in my home must always be taken seriously.” Tony swipes aside the open display on his tablet and switches the screen off. His face becomes shadowed, his expression suddenly sliding into something James can't read.

 

“Listen. I don't know if they told you this but— my parents—” Tony inhales hastily then pushes on in a quick, breathless tone, “—they died. In a car accident that wasn't a car accident. Twenty five years ago. And I know HYDRA had something to do with it because, you know, HYDRA are bastards like that, and my old man might have been a pain but he was on the right side of things mostly, you know?”

 

James has no words, so he merely nods.

 

Tony wheels himself over in his office chair to another large screen that is mounted on the wall, and it blinks on. “So, I was thinking— hoping— you might be able to shine a little light on what I've got here. You would know what HYDRA was like then, so maybe you see something I don't. Fresh eyes and all that. There's a lot of data, but JARVIS can help you summarize if you ask nicely.” Palms flat and open, Tony gives him an imploring smile. “You up for it? Not exactly field work, just some analytics and your expert opinion.”

 

Tony thinks that his parents’ deaths were HYDRA hits. It's plausible enough, sure, but the case is decades old at this point, and James is not sure what sort of miracle Tony expects from him. But the longer James pauses, the tenser Tony grows.

 

The idea of looking over HYDRA files doesn't completely offend him, but it's not a task he would have voluntarily taken on. James thinks about Tony, though. Howard's son, who seems kind if a little overbearing, who is still grieving and looking for closure. And if those things are not something James can have for himself, he'd like to help Tony, at least, find a measure of peace with it.

 

“Sure,” James says. Tony brightens momentarily before he clears his throat awkwardly, as though the answer hadn't mattered.

 

“Great. Awesome. So you can look over that, and make some notes with your inkwell and feather pen, and get back to me with the important stuff. The stuff in the blue folders. Folders? JARVIS can help you with e-folders. JARVIS, how goes the modern integration of our favorite Capsicle? You got him on the awesome plan yet?”

 

James has not, in fact, figured out how he is supposed to interact with JARVIS, so Tony gives him a long-winded explanation. JARVIS occasionally interjects to correct his creator, and then James decides he's not going to ever be fully comfortable knowing a computer is essentially monitoring his every move within the tower.

 

Tony then asks for James’ phone and proceeds to do a number of things to the device. At one point he removes the entire backing to fiddle with the insides. James isn't too sure at first, having recalled Howard's disastrous flying car, but Tony hands the mobile phone back in short order. It looks exactly the same, but Tony assures him it has now been so vastly improved that it would be unrecognisable from the way it was before. James checks his contacts to make sure Natasha is still there and finds that ‘JARVIS’, ‘Pepper Potts’, and ‘My Amazing Genius Landlord’ have been added to the list, bringing the grand total of names to four.

 

“JARVIS, put Jamie here down as Mr. Murder Glare for now,” Tony says. “Code him in for friendship and emergencies.”

 

“I'm gonna go if there's nothing else,” James says. “Got a busy day ahead of me and all.”

 

“Sure, sure,” Tony agrees, the corner of his lips twitching, shooing James towards the elevator with his left hand. “Go enjoy Netflix. I’ll let you know if I find any secret HYDRA bunkers to infiltrate.”

 

* * *

 

There was a man they called the Winter Soldier. The handlers feared him, and they tread carefully around his imposing form with their sharp eyes and shiny guns, always watchful around this strange visitor who spoke Russian with no accent and carried no weapons, yet gave the impression that he was more powerful than an entire armory.

 

The little girls clad in their soft, delicate costumes adored him. He let them clamber around his feet, let them scale his form like a tree. They gripped his arms and legs to swing around, practicing the postures and poses they had learned. They sat on his shoulders, their little legs draped across his broad chest like pale suspenders. They danced dizzying circles around him, hoping to impress. To them, the Soldier was as close to a prince as they'd seen, even with the way his head sometimes tipped down, his lashes fluttering over sad, empty eyes.

 

In some brief moment, where the handlers were not watching, he would pet their hair and call them sweet in his unknown accent. He would compliment their talents and show them neat tricks: how to use their smaller size as a strength, how to take advantage of bulky weight of their enemies, how to flick knives at targets with ease, and how to stab and cut when the goal was incapacitating or eliminating a target. He told them how men would always, always underestimate them, and how lipstick was a deadly weapon if you wore it well enough.

 

Sometimes he grew quiet and distant, and he would forget words or grow confused at things. But he always let them hold his hands and plant soft kisses on his bristled cheeks before sleep. And he never hurt them.

 

Even when they trained, there was an underlying gentleness to the way he corrected them. He never raised his voice or got angry; the only sign of displeasure was in the flash of cool irises, and the weary sigh he sometimes exhaled as he told them to try again. When the handlers punished them for misbehaviour or failure he did not jerk his gaze away. He watched, his eyes soft, and after he would say nice things; at night that he would sneak to their rooms with made-up stories in halting Russian about the beautiful female agent who wore the bright red lipstick and outsmarted all the villains. She fought in heels and paid no mind to the incompetent people she worked with. She was, to them, like a goddess.

 

The stories of the Agent were passed amongst the girls like a myth, like a cache of little secrets that they kept for themselves. And from these stories you could tell that the Soldier liked the Agent, loved her maybe, and she became someone all the girls aspired to be. Yes, you could be strong too. You could be the perfect Black Widow if you remembered the Agent. And if you emulated her sharp wit and her bloody smile then it didn't matter what the handlers said about you because they were stupid idiots and you were important. You mattered.

 

The Soldier told them so every day. They mattered. If they were good and useful then they mattered. If they tried but failed then they still mattered. Even if he was the only one who thought so, even if they only ever told each other.

 

When the Soldier finally had to go, the girls did not cry. They bit down on the soft insides of their cheeks and they smiled through the pain. They mimicked the Agent and they promised to be good until the Soldier returned to dance with them once more. In two lines they stood, and when they curtsied it was a fluid, singular movement of grace and perfection.

 

“Beautiful,” he whispered, and it was the first and last word of English they would hear from him.

 

After the Soldier left, the handlers began the culling. The ‘unfit’ girls vanished in the middle of the night, screaming and crying as the others shut their eyes and feigned sleep. Some of the girls fought back. Most fought back, using gravity in their favour to flip the larger, heavier men onto their backs, stabbing with little, pointy nails in lieu of knives. Aiming to kill.

 

Empty white sheets greeted them in the bedroom every morning for two weeks. They still did not cry, but their hearts burned and their mouths wept red for a future they did not get to choose.

 

* * *

 

The notes Tony had on HYDRA were extensive, and James wondered if SHIELD knew just how far Tony Stark had gone in his obsessive research. There were hundreds of case files dating back over fifty years, mostly detailing suspected HYDRA agents, missions, and any subsequent involvement. Most intriguing were the files he discovered in the blue folder, sarcastically labelled ‘Super Duper Secret Super-Assassin That SHIELD Thinks I Don’t Know About’.

 

James had JARVIS print those pages so he could pin them on the large, wall-sized corkboard he had ordered, along with some equally large, comprehensive maps of the world. He flagged two more of the regular files that seemed to fit the pattern of the assassin and pinned those on the wall as well. His gaze traced the path of the world's most elusive hitman, the agent who killed HYDRA and SHIELD alike with no discernible preference, and he wondered what kind of price you paid when you purchased the services of a specter.

 

The assassin had been dormant over the last five years, only surfacing recently to nail one of SHIELD’s top analysts. There was no connection that he could see between the victims. Although, the further back the records went, the less reliable the data was. Tony had retrieved a few photographs (Folder: ‘Not Pilfered From SHIELD’s Poor Internal Security’) of a large man swathed in thick black tactical gear, a mask fixed over the lower part of his face that the goggles didn't cover. His hair was usually an indeterminate shade of brown. In older photos it was hard to tell. He mostly wore gloves, but the one time he had touched a surface that had been recovered there were no fingerprints to retrieve.

 

The murders were often senseless, and ranged from reported gang hit to sticking a fork into a toaster. None of it fit any pattern, other than the fact that usually the assassin himself was spotted tailing the victim up to a month prior to the death. The two cases that James had singled out from the other files had been on some gut instinct, but upon thorough examination, they slotted into the timeline perfectly. It was the kind of mystery that belonged in one of those detective novels James had used to love: tricky and with a hint of danger. James sent the two new cases through JARVIS to Tony, who replied with a yellow cartoon face followed by three images of a hand showing thumbs up.

 

Still determined to uncover more evidence, James puzzles over the mysterious assassin until a month later, when Tony calls him with ‘good news’.

 

“New fun thing,” Tony says from the television screen. “Abandoned HYDRA bunker in Austria. Wondering if you and the assassin missus would like to come with.”

 

“You can ask Natasha yourself,” James retorts. “I ain't your messenger.”

 

“She's scary. I already had to ask you, and now you're going to make me talk to her, too? Unbelievable. I have to do everything around here.” Tony huffs and makes a gesture in the air. “But that's a yes, right? Yes to an all expenses paid first-class trip to HYDRA, Austria?”

 

“Yeah,” James answers brusquely. “Sign me up.”

 

They head out as soon as Natasha returns from her mission.

 

When they return, James locks himself in his room and doesn’t step outside the Tower for two months.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

Bucky adjusted the collar of his starched shirt in the mirror. Steve was watching him, perched on the edge of the bed and making rude comments, swinging his bare feet back and forth like ivory pendulums.

 

“Quit it,” Bucky griped, raising a careful hand to his hair to check the smoothness. “Be honest. Do I look alright?”

 

“You looked alright about ten minutes ago. Now you look kinda stupid.”

 

Bucky turned around to flip the bird at Steve, who was grinning widely.

 

“Shucks, Buck. You're fine, alright? Another five goddamn minutes and _I'm_ gonna knock your smug face in, and then you'll be real ugly.” Steve gave him an exasperated look.

 

“Can't all clean up nice and quick like you,” Bucky told him. “You don't even need slick for your hair.”

 

Steve's hair fell like a blond waterfall over his forehead, shining the way the ocean waters shone on a sunny day. He never had to fuss with it the way Bucky did, pushing and pulling to achieve that perfect effect. Even when Steve got bloody and mucked Bucky could recognize his yellow head from blocks away like some golden beacon of incoming trouble and stubbornness.

 

“I'm just naturally this handsome,” Steve agreed readily, sticking out his skinny neck and preening so ridiculously that Bucky snorted.

 

“You and me, then,” Bucky said. “Brooklyn's handsome best out on the town tonight.”

 

“Sure,” Steve said, half-hearted, raising a bony finger to prod lightly at the healing bruise on his face. He'd only agreed to this date after Bucky put his foot down and said that he hadn't gone to all this trouble to find a pair of dames for them only for Steve to disappoint, and that this girl said her friend was a real cute gal, real tiny, and liked art. Bucky had said she'd be perfect for Steve, who was used to his dates towering above him in their heels and having no interest in museums over drinks and dancing.

 

Bucky frowned. “Chin up, Stevie. This is gonna be a real good one, I can feel it. We're due for a stroke of luck anyhow.” Just a few days ago Steve had been rejected from the army for the second time. He’d come home after getting into some brawl, his knuckles split and a purple shiner on his cheekbone to match his bruised pride.

 

Steve half-nodded his head in an aborted motion. “Sure, Bucky,” he repeated, injecting some cheer into his tone. “What's her name?”

 

“Her name's Connie. Or Bonnie. I forget, really, but her friend's real swell, alright? So she'll introduce you.” Bucky smoothed his shirt of wrinkles one last time and reached for his jacket, shrugging it on. “Let's go.”

 

Steve stood and they headed out, Bucky checking the lock on their apartment before they made their way to their dates.

 

Lisa and her friend Connie were pretty swell, and Steve was only maybe an inch or so shorter than Connie, who was a stunning brunette with large, luminous eyes. Bucky liked her sweet demeanour and enthusiasm right away. They all got on famously until the theatre, where Lisa seemed more interested in gossip than the picture they were seeing, commenting on the actors in loud whispers until even Connie seemed embarrassed to be in her company.

 

Bucky was a little cooler to her after that, and at the dance hall Lisa had finally taken offense and tried to drag Connie off with her. Steve had been mostly quiet the whole evening, but Connie had demurred and said that she'd like to stay, upon which Lisa had turned up her nose at the lot of them like some self-centered starlet and sauntered over to the nearest fella to ask for a dance. She kept flicking her eyes occasionally to Bucky, who remained unconcerned.

 

Bucky cheerfully bought drinks for the remaining three of them, and they settled in a empty corner to chat. Steve's expression was a little amused as Connie lamented over Lisa’s behaviour, and he was probably thinking about how it was the first time in history that Bucky's date had gone bottom-up before Steve's. Bucky let Connie do most of the talking, only butting in to ask Steve what he thought in an attempt to drag Steve into the conversation.

 

They ended the night on good terms, with Connie asking to see them both again soon, and Bucky thought it had gone exceedingly well until he suggested another date and Steve had shrugged, giving Bucky the same indifferent, half-hearted smile from before.

 

Frustrated, Bucky took Connie out on his own, maybe trying to convince himself there was some flaw to her he hadn't seen. But Connie was just as nice as she'd been before, and when Bucky got home, Steve had another 4F stamped on an enlistment form burning to ashes in the fireplace.

 

* * *

 

James is hunched over a spread of papers, pouring over the same details for the hundredth time. There are three empty boxes of takeout lying abandoned on the coffee table. James is now also on first-name basis with the delivery boy, as he had demonstrated just an hour ago.

 

Two months after the trip to Austria, James had taken up SHIELD’s retroactive apartment offer and moved back to DC (over Tony's vocal protests). Natasha couldn't figure out what had changed, but whatever it was that James was hiding from her, he had hidden it well. She was clueless, and it frustrated her to no end.

 

“I saw him once,” Natasha says, curled in the loveseat in James’ living room. This gets James’ attention, so he flicks his gaze up to acknowledge her. She’s not offended that he’s been ignoring her this whole time. Ignoring her since Austria, really, and diving into the files Tony had given him with a devout single-mindedness that she hadn’t ever seen in him before. James has dark bruises under his eyes, his limp hair dangling in front of his hollowed, unshaven face. It was a miracle he even agreed to let her in. She had had to threaten to break down the door.

 

“Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. We were under attack, and they’d shot out the tires. He was there. He took out the snipers who were firing at us.” She pauses, grimacing only slightly at the memory. “He killed the rest with his bare hands, James. They didn't even scream.”

 

James frowns at the file he has open. “He didn't shoot at you? Or the target?”

 

She shakes her head. “He killed them all and then he vanished. If I had blinked I wouldn't have seen him at all. From where he was positioned, for him to make the shot that he did— he’s probably more skilled than either of us. Maybe even both of us together. He was strong enough to snap bones with one hand, and I didn't see anyone land a single hit on him.”

 

“Fifty years of accredited hits,” James mutters in agreement. “And he doesn't age?” He doesn’t age, his hair always the same unobtrusive shade of brown, his body containing the same broad stance and large feet that moved with stealth and speed across any surface. Sighted throughout fifty years of history, he is the one constant who haunts her.

 

“Either that or he's continually trained his successors to be just as skilled, which is even more unlikely. You don’t see an agent like him more than once in a generation. He’s the tale that you tell when you want to scare big bad grown up agents. James, he is a dead end, literally. That’s why I'm telling you to drop this before you get into trouble.”

 

“Tony asked me to look into this,” James answers evasively. She knows he isn’t listening anymore from the way his shoulders cave in on themselves, his attention focused on the case file he’s holding. “I'm just doing some research.”

 

“Tony is obsessed with this, and he has been for years. What—” she stops, reconsidering what she was going to say. “I don’t understand, James. You don’t leave the building, you hole yourself up in here looking at case files that are decades old. You don’t come talk to me, or the team, not since we—”

 

“None of your business what I do in my free time, Natasha. You’re the one who said it’d be good for me to live on my own.”

 

Natasha watches him, formulating another approach. “But you're a high profile person now, James. And if HYDRA wants anyone it's you. How long before HYDRA or someone else contracts the Winter Soldier to deliver you? You’re more sensible than this, you know what'll happen if you keep digging.” Natasha is learning forward now, her elbows braced on her thighs. Worry sits on the lines of her back and shoulders, and she lets him see it so he knows that she is serious, because nothing is supposed to unsettle the Black Widow.

 

“Good,” James says, with a sharp jerk of his head. His eyes are a little wild. “Let him.”

 

“No excuse to be reckless,” she snaps back, standing abruptly. Her entire body angles itself in a way that reads as dangerous. “I won’t watch you wreck yourself, James. This isn’t the war anymore. You can’t just throw yourself at every murderous psychopath, hoping they’ll take you out because you’re too scared to do it yourself.”

 

“Get out.”

 

She must look surprised, then, because his expression shifts to one of satisfaction. “James—”

 

“You heard me. Get the hell out! You want to talk to me about the fucking war just like any other of those shrinks?” He rises to meet her, unafraid. His eyes burn like hot pokers where their gaze touches her skin. “You want to hear about how I lost my goddamn mind just— just trying to pull myself together enough to pose for some shitty photographs?”

 

(He can't stop, and every damn thing he's fought so hard to keep down spills out like bile.)

 

“That my own team started talking about how crazy I was behind my back.” He whirls away, his voice splitting over the memory, “That they knew I was fucking insane and they followed me back into hell anyways? How I tried to save him and he— I couldn't—”

 

The file in his hands hits the floor, punctuated by a loud sob, and the creased case papers scatter all across the living room. The echo of Bucky’s voice fades, and the room grows quiet. The space around him is now only filled with ghosts.

 

* * *

 

Rain was pelting down, the water soaking everything till it was dark and murky, muting the already dull colours even further. Steve watched the rain from his perch on a crate, wishing he had a pencil and page to capture it, wishing that Bucky was there to crack a joke or keep him company in the gloom.

 

He didn't have any friends here except Dr. Erskine, and Steve was starting to ache for home. Brooklyn streets and apple pie and itchy starched collars. He wondered how his neighbours were doing— if the couple upstairs had had their kid yet, if old Mrs. Hancock was doing alright with her groceries and her bad hip, and if the new paper boy was settling well into his job.

 

He listened as raindrops splattered against the roof of the building, a million tiny footsteps marching at once.

 

“Poor idea to be out in this weather,” said a voice over his shoulder, disapproving.

 

“I'm fine,” Steve said, the familiar words escaping before he could think better of them.

 

“You're white as a ghost,” Peggy reprimanded him, but she joined him anyways, standing on his left and looking out at the camp. She eyed his army issue uniform: the green jacket that hung too loosely on his skinny frame, the loose pants that were rolled at the ankle. “Mail came through today. Colonel Phillips told me.”

 

“Got no one to write to back home,” Steve said quietly. The only person he wanted to see was already on the front lines, and he knew what Bucky would say if he knew what Steve was up to. He couldn't lie to Bucky, not like that. So he hoped that they'd finish training soon, and if he was chosen and the formula worked on him, he could ask to be shipped out right away. _The 107th, yessir, the same regiment as Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, that's it._ And wouldn't that just knock Bucky senseless to see Steve dressed like this, trained and ready to watch his back the way Bucky had watched his since they were kids.

 

Steve felt the intensity of Peggy's gaze on him, so he turned to look at her, fully expecting her to pity him.

 

“Well,” she said briskly. “Once you've gone out you’ll be writing to me. I'll expect regular updates on your progress. I'm sure I can trust you to give an accurate assessment.” It was something in her tone that led Steve to believe she really meant it when she said he'd be picked, even though they both knew she wouldn't get a real say in the final decision. The fact that she thought he was worth it lit him up inside, and he resolved to try twice as hard, to somehow overcome the asthma that had plagued him his whole life if only to prove that Peggy Carter's belief in him was well-founded.

 

“Sure,” Steve agreed, the side of his mouth upturned in a soft curl.

 

Peggy's eyes shone with warmth, the irises coloured like chocolate and honey even in the damp weather, making Steve's hands itch for charcoal with a completely new reason. “Good,” she said.

 

He liked Peggy a lot. He liked her confidence and her unwillingness to back down. And if he liked her hair and her lipstick, too, he kept it to himself, because there was enough of that going around in the cabins without him adding to it. Steve had already punched out two guys for—as Bucky would put it—besmirching her honour, and Peggy had come to see him at the infirmary on both occasions to remind him, maybe a bit crossly, that she could look out for herself. The second time he'd landed himself with a busted lip, Steve had blurted out that he couldn't help himself, it just wasn't right to let them to talk rudely about a lady that way, causing Peggy to smile.

 

“You've always been like this, haven't you?” she had asked him, amused. “Throwing yourself into the thick of things. Getting into fights over righteous causes even before there was a war.”

 

And Steve had saluted her, a sarcastic ‘yes ma'am’ pouring over his split lip, just for the satisfaction of hearing her laugh. It was, he had learned, a sound that warmed him all over and chased the painful twinge on his face far away.

 

He and Peggy stayed quiet for a few minutes, letting the weariness of the day seep out of their bones to join the rain in soaking the dirt.

 

“What'll you do once the project is done?” Steve asked her.

 

“Find more men for the program,” she said simply. “Although if Colonel Phillips has his way, they’ll just give the serum to the any of the skilled men who are already on the front, never mind Dr. Erskine's warnings.”

 

An army of supersoldiers, Steve thought, trying to picture it. The image he got was a bunch of rude fellas like the ones he was bunking with, only bigger and tougher than they already were. “Sounds like fun,” Steve replied flippantly.

 

Peggy gave him a mock glare. “We can't all be model citizens like you Steve Rogers, constantly having to cause our own trouble.”

 

 _She’s got you there_ , Steve heard Bucky say. _Can’t go near trouble without hearin’ your name._ Bucky had once said that there were pets better behaved than Steve when it came to running off, and it seemed Peggy would agree with him.

 

“My ma called it a special talent,” Steve said innocently, raising his eyebrows at her.

 

It was a silly thing to say, but Peggy scoffed, her lips twitching with mirth, so Steve labelled it a success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please do leave a comment and/or subscribe for updates! Any guesses as to what Bucky finds in Austria?
> 
> I'm also on tumblr at [@daisyridlay](http://daisyridlay.tumblr.com)!


	5. Consequences

They wanted him to give a speech. At the grand opening of the Smithsonian exhibit. Pepper had sent him all the details through email, and James had printed a paper copy to read. He isn't even sure what they want from him. A speech... a speech about what? Captain America was the one who gave inspiring monologues about heroism and doing the right thing. Bucky Barnes’ role in the war had always been that of the protector, not the wordsmith.

 

After kicking Natasha out the other day, James had spent the last week or so depressed and exhausted, rereading the Winter Soldier's case files and drinking lots of coffee to keep his dreams at bay. He declined Barton's offers to spar when he was in the neighborhood, declined Tony's offer to fly over and treat him to fancy Japanese food, rejected Pepper's good-natured suggestion of a new therapist. He told JARVIS through text to block any non-emergency calls from the rest of the world.

 

When James did sleep, it was his own screams that he heard fading into the Alps, the cold rush of wind pushing him down into a winter's grave.

 

Upright in his bed, James considers the clock. It is, in fact, ridiculously early, but the thought of going back to sleep seems futile. He's sick of the nightmares, of wishing that he wasn't so weak and afraid. Natasha’s words rankle within him, like dull knives clattering around inside his hollow chest cavity. He throws the covers of the bed off, unexpectedly angry.

 

His body craves the adrenaline of a mission, the satisfaction of a clean kill. It's been too long and he is so, so tired. James paces the room like a restless animal. He decides to go out. It's not even dawn yet, so most of the building's inhabitants will still be sleeping. The nurse next door does odd shifts, but she doesn't bother him other than to say hello sometimes.

 

The Smithsonian e-mail lies abandoned on the kitchen counter, buried under empty coffee cups and takeout containers as James shuffles to the exit, tugging on an oversized navy hoodie.

 

He takes the stairs down and avoids the front exit. As soon as he's outside his feet are pounding the concrete, the thick city air filling his lungs. James pushes quickly to his full speed, tearing down empty street after empty street, the word _enhanced_ ringing in his ears. When his muscles start to burn, he slows his pace enough so it stops and then keeps going, his breaths harsh and fast as he tries to gulp down oxygen.

 

He races to Monument Park, where he does laps until people start to show up. There is one man doing warmups and trying very hard not to side eye James every time he blurs past.

 

With the jolt of movement accompanied by each step to keep him grounded, James lets his lids fall shut for a brief moment. He hears the cacophony of reporters and he sees the flashes behind his eyelids.

 

_What happened to you?_

 

_I... I joined the army._

 

_What happened to Steve Rogers?_

 

_I—He—_

 

_Is it true he fell off the train instead of you on your mission in the Swiss Alps?_

 

_Yes, but I—_

 

_Why didn't you save him?_

 

_He wouldn’t—_

 

_Is it because you wanted to take his place?_

 

His brain shuts down, panicked, and James misses a step, nearly twists his ankle. He quickly catches himself and stumbles to a recovery. His muscles are throbbing and he's missing time again. In the edges of his vision, a black man watches with solemnity, then stands up and paces slowly over to James, who tenses. But the man jogs right by without looking.

 

Exhaling, James takes a moment and starts up again, keeping pace a dozen feet behind the other man, matching his footsteps. It's calming not to have to think about the running, just mimicking the path laid out in front of him.

 

They run together until James decides to head back to the apartment. He doesn't answer his ringing phone, disinclined to have to try and brush off Pepper or Tony’s offers for lunch.

 

The rest of the day is spent on restless research, and James discovers a new, previously unsolved homicide case to add to his corkboard. He orders more takeout for dinner and pushes through the evening until he falls asleep on the couch, the papers slipping from his slack hands.

 

James heads out early the next morning, sprinting towards the park to do laps until his new running partner shows up. Morning run is added to his frankly empty schedule, and James starts to look forward to the sense of ease, the lack of pressure to socialize while he and the other guy pace laps. They don’t speak, even as the weeks blow by and the weather starts to cool down.

 

One day when James shows up, the other guy is already there, holding two cups of coffee.

 

“Thanks.” James cautiously takes the proffered cup. It’s got the Starbucks logo on it, and while James doesn’t think this guy is liable to poison him it still unnerves him a little.

 

“No problem. I’ve no idea how you’re always here before I am. Is one of your secret superpowers the ability to get by on two hours of sleep or what?” The guy grins and shakes his head a little. “I’m Sam Wilson, by the way.”

 

“James Barnes,” he says. “But you already know that.”

 

Sam shrugs one shoulder. “Yeah. And I’m also guessing you’re a little tired of everyone knowing that.”

 

Taking another sip of coffee to avoid answering, James considers Sam Wilson, who is finishing the last of his own cup. “I haven’t been out in public since I got out of the ice.”

 

“I hear that,” Sam nods. “Must have freaked you out coming home after the whole defrosting thing.”

 

After they finish their coffee Sam pulls a card out from his pocket. “I work down at the VA. If you ever feel like stopping by and making me look cool for the girl at the front desk.”

 

James takes it to be polite. “Alright.” Then, after an uncomfortable pause, “You ready for some laps?”

 

“As long as you promise not to show off,” Sam says good naturedly.

 

With a shit-eating grin, James takes off at a dead sprint, tossing his empty cup into the trash can on his right with a slam dunk.

 

“Show off!” Sam is yelling, some yards behind him.

 

James laps him once then slows down and keeps pace. Sam gives him a barely believable cold shoulder, and they settle into their quiet workout. Three laps in James feels his phone buzz in the pocket of his sweats. Sam doesn’t say anything, though he must have heard it now that they’re running side by side. Instead he starts to talk about his time in the army. Fifty-eighth, para-rescue. A man named Riley.

 

They keep on like that for a while, with James ignoring the phone vibrating in his pocket. But Sam grows increasingly tired, his pace slowing drastically though he keeps at it, and James is about to call it quits, if only for Sam's sake, when an expensive black car pulls up at the road ahead of them.

 

James is in the midst of reaching for the knife in his belt when the window rolls down and he sees it's Natasha. Scowling, he rushes past his running partner _—_ who makes some breathless, offended noise _—_ to confront her.

 

“Got word you decided to finally fly the coop,” she quips at him, then leans around to look behind him. “Who's your friend?” She must make eye contact then, because her smile turns appreciative.

 

“Just a guy,” James mutters, irritated.

 

Natasha shrugs. “Alright. Get in. I've got some good news. Fury agreed to clear you for a mission.”

 

James looks back at Sam and waves him off. “Thanks for the coffee,” he calls loudly, and Sam smiles agreeably in return. Then to Natasha, “Where are we going?”

 

“Top secret,” Natasha says, singsong. One arm is draped casually through the open window of the vehicle, and her right hand has a loose grip on the steering wheel.

 

James sighs, grits his teeth, and gets in the passenger seat. He needs this mission, if only to let him escape from the confines of his own mind.

 

* * *

 

Nicholas J. Fury. Director of SHIELD. Friend of Alexander Pierce. Sanctioned the creation of the team of heroes known as the Avengers. Has more secret identities than Steve has bullets on his person. The list goes on, but it doesn't paint a comprehensive picture. There is room for doubt. Steve doesn't like the doubt, but he's at an end when it comes to more intelligence (short of breaking into Fury's office and demanding to know why Fury is so damn hard to figure out).

 

He stops by a convenience store and picks up a new package of hair dye. His hair grows too fast and it requires constant touch ups and dye jobs. His head is a mottled mess of different hues of browns because he doesn't look at the boxes when he picks them.

 

His next stop calls for more subtlety. Shrinking his posture to appearing non-threatening, he gives a soft shy smile to the secretary. He stopped shaving a week ago and has a thick beard to show for it. His clothes are plain and unremarkable.

 

His footsteps leads him to the room. The window is open. It is a sunny day outside. Dust motes float across the room onto a small bouquet of flowers that rest on the bedside table next to an assortment of old photographs. There is a woman lying in a bed, a white sheet bunched around her waist, a halo of grey hair on her head. Steve slips in and shuts the door behind him.

 

“Hello again,” says the woman in the bed, as though she is talking to a frightened animal. Her eyes are brown, they are warm like something he cannot quite recall. He nods at her.

 

She gestures to the seat at her bedside with a pale hand. He sits down, taking her frail hand carefully in his larger one. The window next to them is framed by soft white curtains. They are fluttering in the soft breeze. She rubs a thumb over the blank, smooth fingertips where they had burned his prints away. He blinks slowly, swallowing a lump in his throat.

 

“It has been a while,” she tells him. “You've been busy?”

 

He makes a gruff sound of affirmation.

 

Her eyes narrow into sharp slits as she sits up, waving off his attempts to assist her. “You’ve been eating?”

 

He nods again, quickly, and she relaxes into a smile. The years seem to melt away as she does so.

 

“Good. Now, what brings you to my doorstep this time?”

 

“Nicholas J. Fury.”

 

“Nick?” Peggy Carter looks amused. “What’s he done now?”

 

“Do you trust him?” he presses instead of answering. _Is he good?_ is the unspoken question she is meant to hear.

 

She doesn't respond immediately, which worries him. His eyes track her face for signs of confusion or forgetfulness. But she is looking thoughtful, not distracted, so he can calm down. “I trust him to do the right thing,” Peggy says, eventually. “If not always in the right ways. Nick is a good man. I've known him a long time, and I've never had reason to mistrust him.”

 

Steve nods again, giving her hand a soft squeeze. “This... explains,” he says cryptically. “It helps. Thank you.”

 

“Any time,” she tells him. “Anything to keep you checking in with me.”

 

He smiles a little. “Yes,” he agrees. “Thank you,” he repeats.

 

“I'm glad to know you still value my opinion so much,” Peggy says wistfully. “It's been an age since I've felt this useful. Sharon’s work is highly classified enough that I never get to hear any of it.”

 

Steve frowns at that, clasps both hands around hers.

 

“How is Tony doing? He hasn't been by lately.”

 

“Busy.” _Tony has been looking for me_ , he thinks. _Tony and Bucky have been looking for me._

 

“And Barnes? How is he?”

 

Steve shrugs. He doesn't know. Following the alien attacks, Bucky Barnes had not left the sanctuary of the Avengers Tower. He had moved back to Washington, DC. He had not done interviews or events like Tony Stark and the other heroes. His life is a matter of pure speculation.

 

Peggy hmphs. “The two of you. Exactly the same. Never ask for help until you need it, always shutting yourselves off.” She pulls her hand away from his to touch his face. He flinches a little, but otherwise stays very still. Her hands are soft and smell like vanilla and honey. He inhales warmth and exhales decay. Being with Peggy makes his mind less of a minefield, less like it is ready to go off at any moment.

 

“M’fine,” he mumbles, bashful, and she makes a noise of disbelief at him.

 

They stay like that, with Peggy sitting on his left, Steve immersing himself in a whirlpool of memories. Peggy watches with fondness in her eyes, and trails her withered fingers down his arm before gripping them lightly around his wrist.

 

Her face is sad as she finally speaks. “When are you coming home, Steve?”

 

There is no answer to give her. He places a kiss to her temple and disappears through the window, leaving no prints in the room but the ones Peggy imagines on her heart.

 

* * *

 

Two more agents have dropped like flies in the Winter Soldier’s wake by the time Natasha and James to return to SHIELD headquarters.

 

After their debrief, James follows Natasha down to the garage. “So, what was it you took from that ship?”

 

She pauses in front of the shiny black car. He likes that she doesn’t question how he knows. They’re both too good at what they do for that. “Something for Fury,” she says.

 

“Sure,” he agrees flatly. “Any reason he didn’t feel like he wanted to fill me in?”

 

“‘Compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all,’” Natasha says, likely quoting verbatim. “He probably didn’t think you’d be comfortable with it. With lying to the others.”

 

James clenches his jaw. He drags his gaze over their distorted reflections on the darkened car window. “Right. Because the last time I did that it ended real nicely.”

 

Standing with her hand on the car door handle, Natasha is suddenly weary. “Go home, James. Keep chasing your ghost. It won’t solve your real problems.” She opens the door and gets in without looking at him. He watches her drive away, waiting until she disappears from his view before he gets on his motorbike and returns to his apartment.

 

His apartment is vast and empty when he walks in. Papers are strewn across every available surface. The large corkboard is covered with maps and images, string lines drawn taut along the proposed paths taken by the Winter Soldier. James steps forward to touch the grainy images. He stands and he stares at the pictures without blinking until his legs start to ache.

 

The doorbell rings. James doesn't move right away, still caught in a trance. It rings again, multiple times in rapid succession. The sound grates on his ears, and James realizes it's probably his usual dinner order.

 

“Yeah, yeah, wait up,” James says to the air, fumbling in his pocket for his wallet. He’s got to remember to tip better this time. It’s still strange to be handling such large amounts of money. Stomping over to the eye hole, he is surprised to see Fury's imposing face glaring right back at him from next to the regular delivery boy.

 

The last person he really wants to chat with is Fury, especially since he knows Fury is not above calling something an emergency just to get an audience with him. Hopefully whatever it is, James can ignore it and tell Fury to get lost. He’ll even try to be polite about it, since Fury did clear him for duty recently.

 

The door swings open. James looks up to greet his guests.

 

“Hey Mr. Barnes,” Travis says cheerfully, three large boxes of takeout stacked. His blond hair is gelled back and tucked under a ballcap. “How’re you today?”

 

Next to the kid, Nick Fury looks like he’d been through hell and emerged on the other side only to be attacked by a professional hit team. He’s favouring his left side, and there is dried blood all over him. Travis seems unfazed strangely enough, although maybe he’s made enough deliveries to this place to expect the gore from the number of heroes in and out of here.

 

Travis strides in and dumps the containers into James’ arms. “Hold on, I got this thing I want you to sign. It’s for my brother. He’s a huge fan.” The kid starts to root through the pockets of his bulky fall jacket.

 

Fury looks annoyed, and James doesn’t blame him. “Listen kid, we’re on a tight schedule. Get your autograph another time. Barnes, hurry up and pay him.”

 

James goes to put the boxes down, but there’s too much clutter on the coffee table, so he turns for the kitchen. “Hey Travis, did you guys remember to include those extra packs of soy sauce?”

 

“Sure did,” Travis says, so eerily calm that James goes still before the tone even registers fully with his brain.

 

He whips around, the takeout bag slipping from his hands to the floor, the gleam of metal flashing before his eyes, his hand reaching for the pistol tucked in his belt.

 

The gunshot rings out like a death toll.

 

* * *

 

It had been over seventy years since Bucky Barnes had set foot in Austria. HYDRA was unimaginative enough to have multiple bunkers located in obscure forested areas all over the globe, leaving James with an uneasy feeling as he, Natasha, and Tony slid down the steep rocky hill towards their goal. Night was fast approaching, but James was wearing some specialized, bulletproof night goggles that gave everything a strange green tint.

 

“Find the door and I’ll blast it in,” Tony directed them.

 

Natasha muttered something about subtlety, but she stalked off towards the left, vanishing into the undergrowth. James peeled off in the opposite direction, pulling out the GPS system Tony had given him to check the coordinates. They were supposed to be within one kilometer of the compound. Even advanced modern technology had its limits when it came to opposing HYDRA, according to Tony.

 

There was no looming building on the horizon to remind him of Azzano, but somehow the idea of HYDRA lurking below his feet unsettled James more. He gripped the rifle in steady hands and moved further down, careful to avoid slipping on the shaky terrain. His boots crunched leaves and small twigs in their wake as he walked, muted laughter ringing in his ears and faded cigar smoke filling his nostrils.

 

James inhaled firmly, shaking the memories away, and pressed on.

 

“Check in,” Tony announced a few minute later, far too cheerful for someone out in the woods in the middle of the night.

 

“Nothing,” Natasha reported.

 

“No bunker,” James said.

 

“I’m sure we’ll find it soon,” Tony told them. “There’s no way they’d be able to cloak themselves well enough to hide from me.”

 

“Yes. Of course,” Natasha said absently, humouring him.

 

James stared up towards the dark sky, taking in the thick mass of tall trees above him. HYDRA would probably want to clear a small area above part of the base so they could monitor the airways. The foliage here was too heavy to be able to see anything. He picked up speed, removing a long knife and slashing branches out of the way, occasionally glancing up to check overhead.

 

He came to a halt when he reached a small clearing. Weak moonlight shone onto the still, cool waters of a small lake. For a moment he thought he must have gone too far, but the GPS showed he was still within the correct range. Turning to scan his gaze across the waterline, James noticed a short cliff that stood out among the skyline.

 

James lifted a finger to his earpiece. “I think I’ve found it.”

 

Tony did blast their way in as promised, but there was little need for the suit afterwards. The bunker was clearly abandoned as they had expected. They wound their way down the metal steps, James taking point through some wordless agreement. There was no automatic lighting here, so they had to rely on their goggles and their other senses to navigate.

 

“Give a shout when you find the labs, will you?” Tony said, gesturing his intent to split up as they reached a large, open area. “I'm going to try and switch the night lights on.”

 

Natasha and James took the right side, and then parted ways when their path divided.

 

The hallways were plain and unremarkable, and the rooms that James came across were much the same. Partway through their search there was a whoop over the comms, followed by the lights switching on. By then Natasha had reached the labs, so Tony went to join her.

 

Finally, after a few more fruitless rooms, James happened upon a large file room. He'd had to set explosives on the door to get in, so there had to be some valuable knowledge within.

 

James strode straight for W-Z and found a thick folder dedicated to PROJECT: WINTER SOLDIER. His German wasn't good enough to make sense of most of it, but Tony had prepared for this and supplied them with high tech translators.

 

James pulled his goggles back on and flipped the settings on the side, waiting as the device scanned the pages and projected a translation onto his lenses.

 

The file outlined not just one, but multiple Winter Soldier experiments. James read over the detailed data that recorded the subjects’ reactions to torture after torture: extreme electrical shock, rigorous pain threshold testing, and resistance to various acids. He read over limited diet plans and meticulous training records. He read about the chair they used to wipe memories. It was so horrifically clinical that James had to stop partway to still the tremors in his body, the dizziness in his head. He was pushing back the memories of a sterile metal counter, cold hands that strapped him into stillness, and needle after needle injecting fire into his veins.

 

Multiple Winter Soldiers. Maybe enough to explain the constant trail of bodies scattered throughout history since the war. Not for the first time, James felt like he was freezing under his skin. Numb for all those men who had given their lives to stop HYDRA only for this kind of sickness to continue to take root in the world. For Steve, who had given his life in the fight against the monsters who committed these atrocities. For Steve, who had once rescued Bucky from a HYDRA compound in Italy, from a fate just like this. For Steve.

 

More pages of experimentation that James skipped over. Test missions, all successes. Corrective actions taken to ensure compliance. Then the weapons themselves, listed in detail. Eight in total. Symbolic.

 

James ran his gloved hands down the pages of redacted names, heights, and weights. He skimmed past chestnut and ebony.

 

He read: blue eyes and blond hair and six foot four.

 

Subject recovered from the mission; specimen unconscious and unharmed; subject retrieved by agents.

 

Subject shows extreme violent resistance to corrective methods; subject has killed three technicians to date; subject demonstrates high pain tolerance levels.

 

Twenty-five successive memory wipes until noted success at increased voltage; consequently, no recall of past life or memories; the birth of the fist of HYDRA.

 

He saw five blacked out letters and a space and six more blacked out letters through the green tint of his goggles and he did not scream. There was no more air in his lungs to do so.

 

* * *

 

Steve Rogers scales up the side of the fire escape, using enhanced strength to haul himself up at an inhuman speed. It strains his muscles badly, but any lasting damage will heal before the sun even rises. When he reaches the roof he settles down, removing the rifle case from his back and taking in the sleek walls of the apartment building.

 

He does not know which floor Bucky Barnes lives on. What he does know is that this was where Nicholas J. Fury chose to go after being attacked in broad daylight by HYDRA agents. Steve is impressed the man managed to make it here despite the injuries he had sustained. Younger, fitter men had died from less.

 

Through the scope he can see that the upper floors have their lights shut off. He tries to imagine the layout inside, picture where SHIELD would have placed Captain Barnes. Scanning the floors, he can reasonably eliminate the entire lower half of the building, which is composed of offices. Steve readjusts his position and angles to the side, frustrated. He should have begun monitoring Captain Barnes sooner. The mind had insisted on preparation. The heart had insisted on distance.

 

There is no major sign of movement within the building, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone there. Steve knows well enough the damage that ghosts can do. He presses his eye to the scope, his finger curled gently against the trigger like a lover’s caress.

 

Inhale.

 

Exhale.

 

When the gunshot does go off, he does not flinch.

 

* * *

 

James does not visit Nick Fury in the hospital. He stands in a back alley by the side exit and waits for Natasha Romanoff. He’s removed the SIM card from his phone and replaced it with the spare he bought for himself before he’d moved into the Avengers Tower with Tony Stark. When Natasha emerges he touches her arm, silent. Her entire body stills for a fraction of a second, poised to take him apart. He can tell when she realizes that it’s him and relaxes.

 

“Not here,” he says to her, his eyes flickering from side to side to keep track of their surroundings. “Safe house.”

 

She considers him briefly then nods. “Alright. Let’s go.”

 

James pulls the hood of his jacket up and puts on sunglasses as Natasha does the same. “Great,” she says wryly, sliding her arm through his. “We match.”

 

“Shut up.” He yanks his arm away and slips it around her waist instead. Then he tugs them both out into the flow of foot traffic, where they begin the process of blending in.

 

“Rumlow was looking for you,” Natasha says casually, shifting her body weight onto her left foot. They stop at the next crosswalk. James pulls them left.

 

“Yeah?” James says tersely. “And what’d he want.”

 

“To bring you in for questioning,” Natasha tells him in a low tone. “They found the bodies of three SHIELD agents outside the private exit.”

 

“Wasn’t me,” James bites out. “Stole a staff uniform. Went through the front. Easier to get lost in the crowds.”

 

“That’s what I thought,” Natasha says, waving for a taxi.

 

They get in and drive for twenty minutes before Natasha makes them stop, paying the driver and ducking back out onto the street. They repeat the process twice more, James following Natasha's lead and reading her body language for cues. Along the way she stops to pick up a laptop at his request.

 

Evening finds them at an empty safe house filled with pizza boxes. James doesn't care, merely clears a space on the table and pulls out a thin sheaf of files he'd kept tucked away, silently pushing them over to Natasha.

 

Natasha, who doesn't need him to translate German, skims quickly. He watches as her face turns hard, lines creasing her smooth brow. Her fingers hesitate on the last file.

 

“One of these Winter Soldiers is responsible for killing Fury. This one.” James singles out a file. Clinical. Detached. “Hair was dyed blond. Hasn't aged since then, either.”

 

But Natasha isn't looking at the file he's showing her. She's looking at the photograph of Steve Rogers, encased in ice, frozen in time, his pale skin frosted and flawless. “James,” she whispers, her voice brittle.

 

“If HYDRA has an army of these soldiers, even SHIELD might not be able to stop them,” James adds seriously. “We need to find out what it was Fury knew, or what he was on to.”

 

“James,” she snaps again, and there is moisture in her eyes as she looks at him, pained and wretched. “ _Stop it_.”

 

He can't meet her eyes.

 

“He's alive.” Her words are soft. Tremulous.

 

She's figured it all out now, piecing together his strange behaviour and his obsessive fixation on the Winter Soldier. His resulting three-month isolation. His actions slot into place behind her eyes, and the resulting silence presses in on him like a metal vice.

 

James can't look at her or the photograph in her hands. He knows that he should have fallen instead. He should have fallen, because he would have died and then Steve would be here in his place, and Steve would know what to do.

 

Steve could be Captain America and give the people what they wanted, what they needed: a proper hero and not a shattered man. Bucky couldn't even save himself, who was he trying to fool with his shield and cowl, thinking he could save anyone else? He feels ashamed, the heat of it blossoming in his gut and bursting across his skin, burning him from within.

 

Desperate to avoid the impending confrontation, James pulls out the USB that Fury had given him. “Whatever Fury died for is on here.”

 

Natasha opens her mouth to say something, but no words emerge. He's rendered her speechless for the first time since he's met her, but that fact isn't satisfying. He can tell when she decides to shelf the issue away for later, and the harsh twist of her lips lets him know he is not getting off easily.

 

Now grounded, James pulls out the laptop they’d bought. Natasha stops him with her hand. “Wait. As soon as you plug that in they'll know where to find us. We’ll have maybe seven minutes, tops.”

 

He ponders that. “Then let's move somewhere more mobile.”

 

* * *

 

“So, what do you think about seein’ a picture this week?” Bucky said, stripping his jacket off and dumping it onto the back of their ratty couch. Steve was glaring at him. Bucky could feel how Steve was trying to glare daggers through his head.

 

So Bucky started to roll up his shirt sleeves instead of staring back. His forehead gleamed with cooled sweat from his work at the docks, and his hair wouldn't quit falling in front of his face as he refused to look up.

 

“Bucky,” Steve said, his tone angry enough that Bucky looked at him and wondered, not for the first time, how blue eyes could hold so much fire in them. The thick envelope with the papers that read _James_ _Buchanan_ _Barnes_ was in Steve’s paint-smudged hand. “Don't you— don't you have anything to say? Don't you care?”

 

Bucky carefully shrugged, turning his face away with the excuse of folding his jacket up, something they both knew he didn't typically do. When he spoke his voice was calm. “Can't say I didn't see it coming, pal. What’s it matter, anyhow. I was gonna go anyways.”

 

Steve's hands clenched into fists, hard and white in the way that Bucky usually saw them before his best friend proceeded to throw himself at a guy who was twice his size. Steve cast the papers onto the counter with a harsh jerk of his arm. Bucky knew he was making Steve angry. Steve wanted to fight so badly for what he believed in. His Steve, to whom God had given the good health of a small, sickly kitten, and all Bucky could ever think sometimes was _thank God_ , because Bucky didn’t think he could take it otherwise.

 

If Steve had the healthy body to match his bleeding heart, where would that leave Bucky? If Steve was able to chase his battles all across the world, to bear arms against the injustices and the bullies, he certainly wouldn't stay in Brooklyn. Bucky had always known that Steve dreamed of bigger things, and Bucky had done his best to encourage that through art rather than war, working his ass off and saving wherever he could for art supplies. But ever since America had announced the call to war, Bucky had worried incessantly about the lengths Steve would go to to prove himself. So it was better that Bucky would go to war instead. He could fight the fight for Steve too, and Steve would be safe here at home.

 

“I'll write,” Bucky promised, “so much that those guys who have to censor the mail will be sick of me.” He’d write Steve till his hands bled if it kept Steve off the front lines.

 

“Don’t act like this don't matter, Buck,” Steve told him, jaw set, and Bucky wished that Steve would throw a punch. It would be easier to deal with that than Steve’s stubbornness. “Don't pretend this is nothin’.”

 

What Steve didn't know was that Bucky had gotten very good at pretending. Pretending that he wasn't scared shitless that Steve would catch pneumonia every time winter rolled around and leave Bucky desolate and alone. Pretending he had enough to eat so that Steve, who always looked like he was one meal away from starvation, could have more. Pretending that he wouldn't fall apart if something happened to Steve and it was his fault, especially if he could have prevented it if only he'd been smarter or stronger. Pretending to be brave in the face of the draft was nothing. He could pretend to be anything for Steve.

 

“Hey,” said Bucky, quiet and gentle. “It's gonna be fine. Just like nothin’. Germans’ won't know what hit ‘em.” His words echoed falsely around their small apartment. Steve wasn’t facing him anymore, and that almost hurt worse than the silence.

 

Bucky knew that Steve was upset because he was worried, his thin hands still balled into fists, but there was no punching his way out of this one. He reached for Steve's shoulder and Steve flinched, just enough to send a lance of pain through Bucky's whole being. But through the hesitation Steve's body language softened, the anger thawing slightly, and he didn't move away as Bucky pulled him into a one-armed hug, curling Steve against his chest as he inhaled. So maybe things weren't alright. Bucky would pretend that they were for as long as he had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments seriously make my day [hint hint]. This is a bit of a rough chapter, but things get ~~sadder~~ softer in the next one!
> 
> Tumblr is a nice place to talk to me [@daisyridlay](http://daisyridlay.tumblr.com)!


	6. Infinity

Steve watches Natasha Romanoff and Bucky Barnes hotwire a car and speed off down the street. The green dot on his screen continues to blip as they vanish around the corner. Starting his motorcycle, Steve follows the street straight down, intent on following them from a block away whenever possible.

 

They pull up to a mall in a heavily populated area and stay there for less than twenty minutes. Steve watches as agents pull up outside in their black vehicles and swarm to the entrance. His hands twitch for his gun, but he leaves it alone. There are too many civilians in the area.

 

Steve catches sight of his targets when they go to steal another car. He notes the way Barnes curls a protective arm around the Black Widow’s waist. Their hoods are up and Barnes is wearing sunglasses. He tells himself it is irrelevant to the mission, but Steve finds himself fiddling with the sunglasses clipped on his shirt despite himself.

 

When they reach the highway, he has to increase his following distance, especially since a large man on a motorcycle is rather noticeable. The path they take is not familiar, but as they supposedly get closer to their destination, the surroundings definitely are. Steve does not remember being in Wheaton, New Jersey, but his brain insists.

 

It is not until the green dot ceases movement for a good ten minutes that Steve ditches his motorcycle on the side of the road and runs the remaining distance to the old army camp.

 

The gates and tracks are empty of men. Old barracks are the only physical proof an army ever lived here at all. The barracks, and the dim memories Steve has of a young man from seventy years ago. He looks to the spot where the crates used to rest and his eyes are sad. Steve runs large hands along the rusted metal gates and remembers what it felt like to run with a burning sensation in the lungs. Steve thinks of the small blond assailant that he tried to shoot at Barnes’ apartment, and he shudders.

 

There are two sets of footsteps that track to the building. The brain provides information: army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards from the barracks. The building is in the wrong place. He thinks Barnes must have remembered this, too. They once were both Captains in the army, after all.

 

Retreating a good distance away, Steve finds a good place to hide amongst the trees and waits for his targets to emerge.

 

He does not have to wait for long. An incoming missile blast knocks him off his feet, sending him violently into a clump of trees.

 

He curses himself; he must have missed seeing the missile overhead because of the cover the trees provided. A cut on his forehead drips blood into his vision, but he is moving, moving fast, his heart thudding rapidly in time with his quick, uneven breaths. Ashes pour into his lungs and eyes. His mind is blank save for the priority _—_ the urgent command to shift through the rubble, to find the bodies _—_

 

Steve shoves aside slabs of concrete and rock with sheer, unrestrained strength. He grabs and he pulls and he pushes. His ungloved hands become scraped and red, but there is no physical obstacle he cannot overcome to achieve his objective.

 

Time does not pass, and it cannot, not when there is still a chance for survival for the two buried in the ground. His body protests as he lifts another enormous chunk of concrete, tossing it to the side, only to see that the uncovered rock before him is moving. Steve stills, sweat dripping from his forehead. His jacket is in shreds, his arms mostly exposed and covered in dirt.

 

Alive, the brain provides, unhelpfully. Someone underneath is alive.

 

He is torn. The memories want to stay, to verify the safety of James Barnes and his female companion. The gut instinct in him says to run, to stay away for the safety of everyone involved. His heart calls that instinct one of cowardice.

 

The rocks before him shift. A flesh hand scrabbles against the edge of the concrete. A muffled voice speaks from the crater in the ground. The syllables are familiar. The sound matches: “ _Steve_.”

 

When two soot covered figures finally succeed in escaping the debris, Steve Rogers is back amongst the ghosts in the woods.

 

* * *

 

He and Bucky were on their way back from the pictures _—_ their fingers slick with the remnants of buttery popcorn _—_ when they happened across two bigger kids rushing a smaller one in an alley.

 

Steve was all ready to storm in and give them the what for, but Bucky was already five paces ahead, shoving the taller boy off the kid and yelling at him, even though Bucky must have been at least two years younger than them both. It escalated quickly, a few punches exchanged between Bucky and the older boy as they grappled, and by then the victim had already torn off down the street. This left Steve and Bucky with the two older boys, and of course Steve was never one to back off from a fight.

 

It was a fairly even match, with the two other boys giving as good as they got, but Bucky fought extra dirty when he was mad, and soon their opponents seemed to decide that he and Bucky weren't worth the bruises and scampered off. Steve wiped blood from under his nose onto his sleeve as Bucky called curses at the retreating losers.

 

“Jesus, Buck,” Steve said afterwards, raking his gaze across Bucky's battered face. “You look worse than I normally do after a fight.” Steve felt like maybe he ought to be fussing, the way Bucky always did when Steve got hurt.

 

“S’nothin’,” Bucky quipped toothily. “You shoulda seen the other guy.”

 

Steve’s expression softened minutely at Bucky's bravado. “C’mon, let’s go back to my place. My ma made cookies yesterday, so I guess you can have some.”

 

“And you didn’t tell me?” Bucky groused, slinging an arm around Steve’s shoulders and giving him a good shake.

 

“Cause you're a jerk,” Steve replied, touching a little gingerly at his own purpling eye. “And you can't keep your mouth shut.”

 

“Not my fault your ma believes me when I tell her you've been startin’ fights. It's the god honest truth. You wouldn't ask me to lie to your ma, wouldja?”

 

“Yeah, well, it's your fault this time,” Steve said, shrugging out from under Bucky's arm as Bucky tried to get Steve to quit prodding at his black eye. “So you better tell her that.”

 

“You're a sucker for punishment, Rogers. You woulda started it if I hadn't.” And that was true, Steve would have jumped right into the thick of it if Bucky hadn't gone first. Bucky was usually the one to finish up Steve's fights, but whenever they were together lately Bucky had started picking them first. It didn’t bother Steve, but something about it sat funny with him, like maybe Bucky was trying to protect him again, only he couldn’t put his finger on it.

 

Steve raised an eyebrow at Bucky, smirking. “Guess we won't ever know. But I'm gonna tell her you’ve been dragging me into scraps.”

 

“Well, someone’s gotta stand up for the little guy,” Bucky said charmingly, grinning roguishly despite his split lip. “But it ain’t always gotta be you, Rogers.”

 

* * *

 

“Someone moved those rocks,” James repeats, his face hard. His long brown hair hangs in damp clumps all over his head. He scowls as Natasha moves to ruffle it dry with a towel, but he doesn’t move away.

 

“Yes, and I know you want it to be Steve,” Natasha says simply. She tosses the towel into a hamper and reaches for the medkit that Sam Wilson had set out for them, removing some of the bandages.

 

James had sprained his wrist badly trying to shift a final hunk of rock away so they could crawl out. And then, out of options, they had gone to the first place they could think of that no one would be able to trace to them immediately. Sam, who had not been pleased to see them on his doorstep covered in ashes, seemed completely alright with the fact that they had told him that they were on the run because everyone was trying to kill them.

 

“It was him,” James says, stubbornly, watching as Natasha expertly wrapped his wrist with the bandage.

 

“Those things Zola said, you know he was just stalling for time. It didn’t mean anything.” She's switching approaches again, trying to get a reaction from him.

 

James pulls his arm away from her as soon as she’s done. “We doing this now?”

 

“When are we going to do this then, James? When you finally pull your head out of your ass to talk about your feelings of guilt?” Bitterness colours her voice, her face. Her cheeks, still flushed from her warm shower, grow redder with anger.

 

Stepping away, Natasha tidies the medkit and sets it on the dresser, suddenly looking weary and pensive. “You’re not the only one who has to deal with the mess from this fallout. When I first joined SHIELD I thought that this was it. That I’d finally start to make up for what I’d done, or at least try to. Guess it turns out I’d just gone from the KGB to HYDRA.” She sits down next to him, her shoulders slumped. “So you’re not the only one with skeletons in your closet to fear. Just because yours are catching up to you... it’s not an excuse. You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

 

“Do you?” he asks her. And then when she doesn’t answer he clarifies: “Do you still blame yourself for what happened? What you did for the KGB?”

 

Natasha’s smile is brittle. “I tell myself I don’t. But I don’t think I even know whose lies I’m telling anymore.”

 

“Hard to tell the difference, sometimes,” James says softly. “But I trust you. We trust each other. And that’s a good truth, ain’t it?”

 

That brings out a genuine smile. Natasha pats his shoulder and stands. “So you know, I hope it was Steve,” she says. A concession. “I hope you’re right about him, too.”

 

Thankfully, James is saved from answering her as Sam bustles towards the room, purposefully making a lot of noise before he reaches the door. He ducks into the room, swivelling his head to take in both of their expressions. “You guys drink orange juice, right? That’s a thing? Breakfast is just about done if you two are finished here.”

 

“Yeah,” James and Natasha answer together. They look at each other.

 

“Breakfast sounds great, thanks,” James says.

 

“Alright.” Sam almost seems like he doesn’t believe them, but he retreats back to the kitchen, James and Natasha close behind.

 

Breakfast is a quick affair that breaks down into discussion soon after. “I don't know who was involved in that supposed pirate hijacking,” Natasha says. “But Jasper Sitwell was supposed to be on that boarding list. And he was Pierce’s tech lapdog. He would have been the easiest to get to, so it makes sense they took him out first. Rumlow is a paranoid son of a bitch.”

 

“So you think he's not HYDRA?” Sam asks. “If the Winter Soldier Project is HYDRA, and SHIELD is also HYDRA, then that lines up. But you said that they killed HYDRA agents too.”

 

Natasha hesitates. “Yes, but we don’t know how the missions were allocated among the Soldiers. One of them could have defected.”

 

“So this Sitwell guy could be either,” Sam says, throwing his hands up.

 

“No,” James says. “Sitwell and all the HYDRA hits were done by the same man.”

 

“So you think that guy defected. Which means Sitwell is HYDRA,” Sam clarifies. “But that doesn't lead us anywhere. Dead guys don't tell tales and all that.”

 

“Well,” James begins, and Sam shoots him a dirty look which clearly says that James better be getting to the point soon if he wants any help. “The Winter Soldier, the one who does the HYDRA hits, the first one...” James swallows and finds that he's lost the words. He hasn't said them out loud yet, maybe afraid that if he spoke the words and they weren't true, something awful would snap inside of him. Natasha and Sam, perhaps sensing the gravity of the moment, stay silent.

 

This is where it comes full circle. This is where Bucky, who ran headlong into unfair fights and dangerous situations, who ran back to the goddamn second world war for Steve Rogers, returns to the world of the living.

 

Because Steve had forever been the one person Bucky believed in with his whole heart, even long after he had lost the battle for himself. Because being someone for Steve made him someone worth being.

 

So Bucky Barnes always finished Steve's fights for him, and he had never stopped pretending to be that young boy from Brooklyn whose first and only job was to protect Steve Rogers.

 

This is how he finds his voice for the first time in seventy years, full of grief and regret, full of pain endured for two lives lost. He is teaching himself how to breathe once more, absent of the warm, skinny body that used to lay next to his on cold winter nights.

 

“The first person they took for the Winter Soldier project was me. The person who became the first Winter Soldier was Steve Rogers.”

 

* * *

 

He woke up in an empty room, strapped to the bed. Panic seized him, sheer horror flooding his body as he started to thrash violently against the restraints. The beeping of machines in the background escalated to match the painful agony of his organs attempting to pull themselves apart as he screamed, hoarse and afraid. His throat was already raw, like he'd been screaming before, for a long while, and the notion of losing time terrified him even more.

 

Two people came in, tried to calm him. He couldn't understand them, but he knew they were trying to sedate him again. He couldn't let them have him, not again, he'd die before he let them take him, god _—_ _oh god _—__

 

_“—increase the dose, goddamnit, he should have been out for another three hours at least—”_

 

They pinned his arm down long enough to slide the needle into his veins, and without any thought his eyes fluttered shut.

 

His sleep was free of nightmares, and in his dreams he saw a black sky filled with stars, the lights sparkling over a field of blank, untouched snow. He could see the stars so clearly that he could count them for what seemed like hours. In his dreams he would lay down next to Steve, and it would always, always be warm.

 

_“—he was a POW, of course he has a bad reaction to restraints, you morons—"_

 

In his dreams they climbed mountains, trekked through valleys, and conquered canyons. Steve held his hand sometimes, and the grip was always firm and sure. There were no missteps, no loose rocks or poor footholds to slip on. Sometimes they saw the fighting below them, and he would stop until Steve pulled him away, blue eyes sad and sympathetic. He told himself that he wanted to stop, but he let Steve guide him away from the violence below.

 

_“—think he remembers what happened—”_

 

On they went, across the globe, taking in the natural phenomena, the beauty of the world that was untouched by war. Steve never spoke, but that was alright, because they had never needed words before, either. And when they reached peaks and scaled summits, Steve would smile at the accomplishment. He got used to the slow, meandering path they took together. He dreamed and he dreamed, hoping it would never end.

 

_“—talk to him, get a sense of what his mental state is like—”_

 

The next time he woke was in a colourful room, and he was not strapped down, but he was still hooked up to a multitude of machines. He blinked at the ceiling for a long moment, trying to remember how he'd gotten there.

 

“You've been out for over 28 hours.”

 

There was a woman sitting in the corner, her ankles crossed in front of her. She had closely cropped turquoise hair, and was wearing a black turtleneck with cutouts along the arms. Her accent was American with the soft hint of something more. The sound of it calmed him a little.

 

There were questions that he wanted to ask, but there was still a thick fog in his head, preventing proper thoughts from forming. The woman watched him, quiet. He got the sense that she was deadly even before she stood and he saw the outlines of the concealed weapons that she'd stashed all over her person.

 

“What do you remember? What can you tell me?”

 

It must have been an easy question, because the answer slipped out. “Sergeant James Barnes. 32557038.”

 

Her eyes held a bit of a smile in them. “Good to know. Do you remember what year it is?”

 

“Sergeant James B _—_ ” he repeated. Then he paused, his head twitching to the side. It was. He was.

 

“2008,” she told him. “That plane you flew into the ocean saved a lot of lives, James. You've been frozen in the ice for seventy years since then. It's a miracle you survived.”

 

Silence, save for the metronome of his beating heart. He let his eyes slide shut, felt the memory of ice flooding his veins. He did not remember merging with the ice, but he did remember the cold.

 

“SHIELD found you. We're an American intelligence organization that deals with terrorists. They got you out of the ice and saved your life. My name is Natasha Romanoff. I work as an agent here, but they've assigned me as your handler. I’m here to help you adjust with your integration into the modern world.”

 

Her voice was too soft, her words too deliberately gentle. The last sentence sounded like she’d been told to say it by someone else. His mouth twisted and he turned his head away to face the wall. It was blank and serenely blue. Looking at it hurt.

 

“Do you have any questions?” she asked, ten minutes later. There was a singular window in the room that shone weak sunlight in through slanted blinds. He focused on the light, on the dust motes that fluttered through the air like microscopic snow. He focused on the places where the light touched his skin and he felt nothing.

 

“When I flew the plane into the ocean,” he said, and it wasn't a question, it was a regret, “I wanted to die.”

 

* * *

 

Steve watches the party leave through his scope. Sam Wilson is a new variable in the mission. A quick search shows that he is a veteran (two tours) who works as a counselor at the local VA. Steve has long since ditched his motorcycle for a new vehicle to draw less attention, and now he watches them through the driver's seat of a small Volkswagen.

 

Barnes and Romanoff appear unharmed from the missile strike in New Jersey, which is good. They are taking Wilson with them, which is strange. Despite Wilson's admirable performance in the military, Steve isn't sure he'd be skilled enough to be worth the assist. But Wilson cracks jokes that chase the glum looks from the faces of the Black Widow and Captain Barnes, so for now he has Steve's approval.

 

He tracks them through the infiltration of an army compound, and he sees Sam Wilson hit the skies with the EXO-7 FALCON jetpack. The Howling Commandos never had air support: they had Bucky Barnes stashed in high places with his sniper rifle. The brain provides striking visuals of a sharp jaw, clever hands, and a blue wool coat.

 

Steve still does not have the information he needs to act on his own, so for now he'll need to continue to tail the three of them, the only people who ostensibly know the contents of the information stolen from the SHIELD ship. Natasha, Sam, and Bucky are now most likely looking for Project Insight, so it's in Steve's interests to guide them in that direction, as he currently has no plan for stopping the helicarriers other than showing up on SHIELD'S doorstep loaded with ammunition.

 

The Bucky Barnes in his memories calls that kind of behaviour reckless and stupid.

 

Steve doesn't know what to do with that, so he lets the voice ricochet around in his brain, filling the spaces with its ferocity.

 

As they head back into the city, Natasha does not have them stop to switch cars. Stupid, he thinks. By now HYDRA already knows they did not die in the missile attack, and will quickly trace them from the army compound to here. Steve spots the tactical teams on the highway before they do, far enough ahead that Steve is able to stomp on the gas pedal and send his Volkswagen careening into the trunk of Natasha’s stolen car, the impact hard enough to veer them off course.

 

Barnes and Romanoff come tumbling out, landing on their feet with their guns drawn, approaching Steve’s vehicle, but Steve has already abandoned the car. Running full tilt towards the confused HYDRA agents, he dodges the incoming traffic, slides two knives from their holsters, and throws. The blades slice through the air, one lodging the windpipe of an agent and the other in the side of their van door. The door slides open to reveal three masked shades: blond, brunette, and red. One of them wrenches the knife from the metal with a black gloved hand.

 

Steve slides a pistol into his hand and raises it. His vision narrows to the trio of bodies, and he fires without hesitation until the clip is empty. They initiate pursuit, so he starts to draw them away from the scene, away from Sam and Natasha and Bucky. He leaps over the side of the highway and vanishes.

 

* * *

 

Steve and Bucky lay on the ground outside, keeping watch under the stars. They'd just gotten a day's leave, and they'd decided to spend the evening here while the boys drank themselves stupid at the bar and tried to take home women.

 

“Tell me about your training,” Bucky had said, because most of the time Steve hung on to the edge of a mission by the skin of his teeth, and he clearly had no idea of the finer details of the war despite his excellent tactical sense. Bucky deplored Steve's lack of self-preservation nearly every day much to the amusement of everyone, including Steve himself.

 

Smiling, Steve shifted a bit to the left and pressed his arm against Bucky's. Bucky resisted the urge to curl their forms together like they had so many times before. It was almost like the sleepovers from their childhoods, save for the fact that Steve was now taller than he was.

 

After a brief second passed, Bucky realized that Steve must have done a lot of stupid things in training, because right now he was obviously stalling as he tried to think of an acceptable answer that wouldn't get him yelled at.

 

“We ran a lot of laps,” Steve said, lamely. Then, with more interest, “One of the things they asked us to try was to get the flag down off this huge pole. If you did it you could ride back in the truck. So after the rest all gave up I went and unscrewed the bolts at the bottom _—_ ” Bucky snorted at this point, so Steve continued earnestly, encouraged, “ _—_ and it was easy going from there,” Steve finished, sounding pleased with himself.

 

“So you're a cheating cheater even when it comes to war games,” Bucky said. “Why am I not surprised.”

 

“No rule against being smart,” Steve said, humming.

 

Bucky tried to kick him, but they ended up just bumping feet. They were far enough from the camp that they were relaxed; there was a meal in Bucky's stomach and a semi-comfortable bed waiting for him. There was also Steve, who had rolled onto his side to stare at Bucky rather than the vast, star-speckled sky.

 

Raising an eyebrow, Bucky said, “Got somethin’ to say, Rogers?”

 

“Nah,” Steve said. “Just enjoying the view.”

 

“Quit joking,” Bucky replied, inwardly telling his heart to stop trying to jump ship and splatter itself all over Steve's perfect cheekbones.

 

Steve only hummed again, the soft smile fixed in place on his face, new and old all at once. Bucky closed his eyes, turning back towards the stars. He felt Steve's hand squeeze his shoulder, and then he heard Steve shift back, still drawing Bucky's body towards him like a magnet.

 

“Are you happy here?” Bucky asked, after a while. Moonlight shone down on them both, highlighting Steve's hair so it looked white-blond, like it had looked when they had been younger.

 

“It's a war, Buck,” Steve answered mildly, but Bucky knew the question was understood. “If you mean am I happy to do my part, sure. You know that. There are things I wish I hadn't seen.” Steve paused momentarily, swallowed. Bucky wanted to wipe the frown lines off his face with his fingertips, to smooth away the shadows that lurked under Steve's eyes like the monsters that Bucky had once vanquished from below their beds. “But I like to think we make a difference.”

 

“We,” Bucky echoed, incredulous. “You're the one who rescued a whole battalion. Don't tell me you haven't made a difference. When we win this war you're going in the history books, Stevie. There'll be pictures of you to inspire a whole new generation of asthmatic, rebellious punks.” The words were joking, but his tone was slightly somber.

 

“I think Colonel Phillips is fed up enough with one of me,” Steve said consideringly. “And you forgot ‘stubborn’.”

 

“Right.” Bucky used his free hand, the one not attached to the arm that was pressed against Steve, to stifle a yawn. “How could I forget that one.”

 

“You fall asleep out here and you're gonna get twigs in your hair again,” Steve said, wriggling his body up vertically to push a hand through Bucky's hair. Bucky felt the fine hairs on the back of his hand brush the scratchy wool fabric of Steve's hip, and firmly decided to hold very still.

 

“You're a mother hen,” Bucky murmured, but he didn't protest as Steve dragged careful fingers through his brown locks, dislodging tangles along the way.

 

“No, that's what the Howlies call you behind your back. Or to your face, come to think of it.”

 

“You're a terrible best friend and CO,” Bucky complained. “Letting your men mock me. You could really hurt a fella’s feelings like that, Rogers.”

 

“You're tougher than that,” Steve chided him, his hand leaving Bucky's hair. He didn't move away, though. There was still the shared warmth between them, and Steve’s lungs breathing a steady rhythm just below Bucky's ear. “But don't worry Buck, I'll protect you from the guys if it comes down to it. Can’t have my best pal feeling like my best gal instead.”

 

Steve laughed at Bucky's resulting scowl, the sound of his voice rich and pure in the cool night air, and Bucky was glad that the dark disguised the faint flush on his own face. If Bucky leaned over he could fit himself in the concave of Steve's chest, bury his shoulders against Steve's ribs, and slide his hips with that sculpted, narrow waist. He knew they'd fit together, just the way they'd fit before the war, because to Bucky it was a fact, simple as anything. They fit.

 

“You'd never let them call Carter names,” Bucky said numbly, a little breathless.

 

Steve shrugged his broad shoulders. “Honestly, it's more for their protection than anything.” He smiled, bright and warm. “Did I tell you how she punched out this one jerk on my first day of training?”

 

“No,” Bucky said, as Steve shuffled away and rolled onto his back to gaze at the moon. He suddenly felt like he'd missed something. “Tell me all about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pining!Bucky is one of my favourite things in the entire world.
> 
> Seriously, come bother me on tumblr [@daisyridlay](http://daisyridlay.tumblr.com) :)


	7. Trust

The blond moves too quickly, slipping out of range as he dances behind a different vehicle. James will recognize him as the hitman sent to take out Nick Fury. The dark-haired one, tall and brute-like, loads and cocks his own rifle. His hair is pulled tightly in a short tail. The brunette, also tall, her hair shorn to the scalp on one side, removes her own set of knives.

 

These are three of the world’s remaining Winter Soldiers.

 

They move in synchronization, a multi-bodied organism that thinks and acts with optimal efficiency. They have the cold temperament of a vacant mind and the solid force of a serum-powered body. They think the way Steve and Natasha used to: of only the mission and the objectives and the goal of the right corpses strewn in the right ways. Their bodies have become dispensable tools in the quest to get the job done; they come to blows with no care for themselves or each other. Everything is done in a systematic fashion.

 

Communication is exchanged through loaded glances of shared experiences, of years working between time spent in the ice. They have no names, only the occasional twitch of the facial expression beneath the mask, the sharp tone of brief orders given in Russian or English or German. They have never been taught to trust; not each other, not their handlers.

 

James, who has read their files, read the numbers in lieu of their names, the hierarchy of science in lieu of their personalities, fears them. He very well knows that this is the possible path Steve took, that that when he finally lays eyes on Steve there will be nothing but an empty husk staring back.

 

Natasha discharges her handguns into two HYDRA agents, storming forward. This was their decision, to choose the confrontation, albeit sooner than they had expected. There was supposed to be a quiet ambush and lifted security clearances. There were not supposed to be civilians.

 

“Go!” Natasha shouts at him suddenly, and he is startled, his aim jerking a mere millimeter to the right, the resulting shot missing his target. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Sam nod. “Help him. We've got this.”

 

Something warm rises in him, but there is no time to analyze the sensation. The three Soldiers have followed Steve off the side of the highway in pursuit.

 

James makes it to the edge of the highway with Sam providing his cover. He jumps off the concrete and lands hard on the vehicle below. In the short time he takes to regain his bearings, the four assassins have vanished amongst the pandemonium. James reloads his gun and slips to ground level, creeping behind the parked vehicles. With three-on-one, Steve had been forced to retreat, to hope to separate them and take them out one at a time.

 

It is the sound of violence that draws James back out, to see the brunette woman engaging Steve in an intricate dance of knives and foot play. Steve, dodging like a champ, gets in a good slash to her abdomen before a shot fires off to their left, a bullet lodging itself in his lower thigh. The blond man or the larger, black-haired man, maybe. They were the only ones precise enough to take the shot. James fires and clips the brunette in the arm, taking her by surprise.

 

She hisses in pain, falling back as her compatriot—the raven-haired man, James sees—sends bullets down on him and Steve both. From what little James can see of Steve's face, the bullet in his leg might as well be a minor inconvenience. There are no gritted teeth, no contortions of pain.

 

Steve materializes a knife out of his sleeve and hurls it in the direction of the gunfire, which pauses as James assumes the Soldier seeks cover again. James surveys the street and moves after him, trusting Steve to cover the woman. The blond is still unseen, which triggers James’ paranoid instincts.

 

There is wind rushing in his ears as James engages his target; it is a hard, desperate scrabble to win the upper hand. The Soldier is faster than him at hand-to-hand combat, is even more deadly with the blade in his hand. James has to swap his gun for a knife sooner than expected, and it requires almost all his concentration just to keep track of his opponent.

 

He is at a physical disadvantage here: he’s running on no sleep, and out of practice since he got out of the ice. But James has raw emotion on his side, he has anger and grief and hope pounding in his chest. He knows how to fight dirty.

 

His opponent is stronger and faster, but James is battling with cold hatred, and each blow he blocks is a slap in the face of HYDRA, each drop of his enemy’s blood is a balm on the wound of his soul. He hears gunshots ringing out down the street, but he can’t stop to look if it’s only to see another loss. The Soldier slams James’ body against the side of the van, where they fumble with their knives.

 

They grapple for an eternity, but James manages to throw the Soldier aside. He staggers back to refocus and realizes he’s bleeding heavily from his left side. The blood stuns him momentarily.

 

Before him, the Soldier’s face is blank as untouched snow. Over his shoulder, James can see Natasha battling with the blond assassin. The two of them vanish behind a vehicle.

 

James reorients towards his opponent. His brain initiates movement before he sees the gun, his body registers the bullet before he hears the gunshot. Pain blazes through his lower torso as his back slams against the side of the van behind him. His vision blurs for a second before he sees Steve launch himself at the Soldier, blood streaming from one side of Steve's face.

 

Pressing a hand to his side to staunch the bleeding, James pulls himself to his feet, his other hand reaching for the last knife tucked in his belt. Only mere seconds have passed, but he feels dizzy with shock. Natasha appears in the peripheral of his vision, Sam by her side. Seeing them unharmed allows him to let some of the anxiety and tension in his veins dissipate.

 

“The other two are gone,” Sam says as soon as he reaches James. Natasha is staring at something a distance away, her posture stiff. Sam bats James’ hands away to look at the damage. A dark wet spot exists over the clean entry hole in his jacket, but there are also cuts all across his chest and ribs, leaking blood into his shirt.

 

“Sam,” she says. Sam is still fussing over James’ wounds.

 

“How are you not dead,” Sam mutters, shaking his head, and honestly James wants to say he doesn't know.

 

Sirens are wailing through the air. They are alone on the street. James shoves Sam off of him. “We gotta go, we hafta _—_ ” Cursing, Sam grips him by his good arm and pulls James partly over his shoulder, careful not to jerk his injuries too much.

 

Blinking, James looks across the street, down past the dozens of buildings and storefronts where the police vehicles are racing towards them. Natasha’s red hair fills his vision momentarily as she moves quickly in front of him, and James scowls, because he doesn't need protecting.

 

“I'm not gonna hurt him.”

 

That voice snaps him to full alertness. James pushes at Natasha, who reluctantly stands aside. “I'm fine,” he insists to Sam, who pulls a face but releases James.

 

Two pairs of hesitant eyes meet.

 

“Bucky,” Steve whispers, exhaling the word softly as though unsure.

 

And just that one name is enough to send his body reeling, his ribs like a vice around his struggling lungs, the sensation of his heart pounding viciously as it attempts to escape his chest. Words clog his throat, stopping the noises that threaten to spill out.

 

Steve looks at Bucky for a singular second that encompasses their missing time, a portion of those seventy years spent in the ice. Steve’s eyes are a reflection of the deep ache Bucky feels, the weariness in his shoulders and the meat of his bones. Steve looks at Bucky and they are sixteen years old again, small and scrawny, fighting dirty in the streets and back alleys of Brooklyn.

 

Bucky looks at Steve, and then Steve is gone.

 

* * *

 

It was dark by the time Steve arrived back at their small apartment, his enlistment papers tucked snugly in his jacket lining. There was a light feeling inside of him, like if he could accomplish this _—_ if he could overcome that 4F and prove to everyone he had what it took to serve his country _—_ he could do absolutely anything.

 

Bucky was already home, still dressed in his neatly pressed sergeant’s uniform. The twinge of envy that had previously existed in Steve was now only a memory.

 

“Home early?” Steve greeted as he stepped into the room.

 

There was a singular candle lit on their wooden table, wax dripping down into the metal holder. The orange light reflected off the metallic accents on Bucky’s jacket. His army cap was resting on the table, its shadow stretching across the wooden grain.

 

“Gotta be up early tomorrow,” Bucky said. He stretched out like a cat, his long legs straightening out along the floor as he pulled his arms behind his head to crack his knuckles.

 

“Guess so,” Steve agreed somberly.

 

“Try not to miss me too much.” Bucky smiled cheekily at him, tiny crinkles forming around Bucky's eyes. Even in the dim light, Steve could make out the faint flush on Bucky’s handsome face, the after-effects of alcohol consumed throughout his evening of dancing.

 

Steve snorted, shaking his head. “As if.” He stepped forward and pulled their other chair out, flipping it around so he could straddle it. “Gonna have our apartment all to myself; it’s gonna be real swell without you stinkin’ the place up.”

 

The corners of Bucky’s mouth twitched. “Real harsh, Rogers. Is that anything to say to your best pal before he gets shipped off?” Bucky’s eyelids drooped slightly as he propped his feet carefully on the tabletop.

 

“I dunno,” Steve answered carefully. Some strange impulse convinced him to turn the question back around.  “What do you say to your best pal before you get shipped off?”

 

Bucky’s gaze turned serious, his legs slipping off the table as he sat up, the full intensity of his stare resting squarely on Steve. His mouth flattened out a little. “Gettin’ emotional on me, Rogers?” he asked, but his voice was all soft, not at all teasing.

 

Uncomfortable but unwilling to show it, Steve shrugged a loose shoulder, trying to match the casualness of Bucky’s scrutiny. They didn’t talk about feelings often. Their friendship was best displayed through crude jokes at each others’ expenses and half-hearted roughhousing on and off the streets. Steve and Bucky danced around their emotions more than they did when they went out with girls, and it had always been better that way. Or at least Steve had thought so.

 

But between the two of them, Bucky had always been the one to take initiative in displays of affection, whether it was a gentle cuff against Steve's bicep or firm words of encouragement when Steve was feeling down. Steve remembered how Bucky had convinced him year after year to share a bunk during those bad winters, telling Steve it was in the name of his own peace of mind as well as Steve's health.

 

It was hard to reconcile that with this Bucky, who had been strangely stoic and silent about going to war, who had stared on at war movies that had shown families and sweethearts bidding farewell to their young men. Steve wondered if he was right to think that there was more Bucky wasn't sharing, and if so, why he hadn't shared it with Steve.

 

“Well,” Bucky began, into the faint warm glow of the candle. “I guess I’d say don’t worry about me too much. And I’d tell my best pal that he’d better be sending me cigars while I’m out suffering greatly for our country.” A grin tilted the side of his face, but there was less effort in it. His tone was still quiet and focused. “I’d also say keep outta trouble, but I know that’d be a stretch even if I was stayin’ here.” Bucky shuffled in his chair, fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt. “And that I'm always here for him, even when I'm an ocean away.”

 

Steve didn't know what to say to that, but he found he couldn't look away from the glow reflected in Bucky's blue eyes. Bucky seemed to find the response he was searching for anyhow, because he leaned forward to pat Steve's forearm.

 

“Time to call it a night,” he said, and he pushed the candle towards Steve. “See you in the morning, Stevie.”

 

So Steve sat by the candlelight for another hour, but all his thoughts seemed to have fled the room.

 

* * *

 

The inside of the van is thick with tension. Sam had not been allowed to sit next to James, and it’s killing him to see the guy slumped over, his arm wrapped tightly around his torso. Their captors, SHIELD or HYDRA, didn't seem to care about the injury. James had assured Sam of some kind of super healing, but Sam wasn't so convinced it applied to near-fatal wounds. You didn't just get shot in the gut and walk away.

 

“Listen,” Sam tries again, pleading with the two guards in the vehicle with them. “He needs medical attention. Just let me _—_ ”

 

One of the guards crackles a taser threateningly, so Sam shuts up, now seething. He hates feeling useless, and he knows if he analyzes the feeling it would trace right back to Riley spiralling down through the sky, which makes it worse.

 

Then, unexpectedly, the guard stabs the taser to the side, disarming their companion.

 

“Hill,” James croaks, as she removes her helmet.

 

“Yep,” says Hill, popping the 'P'. She looks at Sam. “Who's this guy?”

 

Sam thinks privately that if more time spent around James equates to the equivalent of literally being James Bond and meeting badass action babes, he could start to live with being shot at on a daily basis.

 

Maria Hill, as it turned out, was there to spring them from jail before they even arrived there. She was pretty cool, but in a scary way, as most of James’ friends seemed to be. Sam followed James and Natasha's cues as he supported James into some freaky secret spy base. Those two acted like this was just another day on the job, so he wasn't gonna be the wide-eyed newbie if he could help it.

 

 _Keep your cool, Wilson_ , he told himself.

 

When they got settled, Sam made sure that they saw to James first, then sat down with Natasha to wait while their boy got stitched up. “So, what's the story with him and Steve Rogers?” he asks her.

 

Natasha has a scratch running across her cheek, to which she is applying some alcohol from a medical kit. Sam had seen her fight with the blond Soldier; the two of them made knife dueling look like an art form. Sam, who had only fought regular evil goons, was just feeling heavily bruised all over. Reaching across, he takes the alcohol from her and pours some onto a fresh cotton wad, shuffling closer and waiting until she nods assent so he can help dab at her other injuries.

 

“James has a lot of guilt leftover from the war,” Natasha tells him. “You know what he told you. He feels like he failed to save him.”

 

And Sam gets that, Lord knows he does, but _—_

 

“I don't mean that. I've seen that enough, in my line of work. I don't mean the PTSD and the survivor's guilt. I mean _—_ ” Sam breaks off, trying to organize what he wants to say. He brushes delicately at a gash on her arm. Natasha doesn't flinch. “I know things were... different, back then, but were they just friends?”

 

The corner of Natasha’s lips turn downwards. “I couldn't say that. But I know that James loved him. Loves him,” she corrects, her hands stilling their movements. “He loves him. And it worries me, what that will make him do. James is reckless when it comes to Steve Rogers.”

 

No, Sam thinks. James is lost without him. James was clinging to Steve, to the Steve he knew, because he was afraid losing Steve a second time would mean losing himself again. And that wasn’t healthy.

 

So seeing James stare at Steve Rogers like the sun was shining out his every facet was painful, because James had been doing so well. He'd opened up back at Sam's house, and Sam had felt like some real progress had been made. Seeing Steve on the bridge had set that back.

 

When James reappears, his eyes are brighter and happier despite the heavy shadows beneath them. He isn't even as upset as Natasha is when they discover Nick Fury is still alive, albeit looking like someone had hit him with a bulldozer and rolled over the resulting body.

 

Hill and Fury explain about Project Insight, about HYDRA’s plan to assassinate everyone who posed a threat to their ‘new world order’, and it makes Sam sick, to think that people who would willingly condone this have been living in their society. Sam looks at James and it's no wonder he's not looking surprised, because this is the kind of bullshit facism and bigotry they had had to deal with in WWII.

 

Sam had once done a school project on the Howling Commandos. On how the diversity of the team was something previously unheard of in the war. On how proud Sam was to look up to Captain America as the true people's man, someone who didn't care about skin colour.

 

“Steve was tracking them too,” James says at some point, bracing his elbows on the table as he leans forward. It's a wonder he doesn't wince from the stitches in his side. “It's why he took out Jasper Sitwell. He's been tracing HYDRA back to its roots. He’s been taking them out one at a time.”

 

No one contradicts him, but the looks on their faces clearly say that they are doubtful of Rogers’ loyalty. Sam, who had watched Steve fight the Soldier who had shot James like a man possessed, is uncertain of something more pressing as he watches James’ animated movements. Sam remembers the way the body of the Soldier looked when Steve had finished: broken and beaten to a bloody end on the concrete. Sam remembers the way James looked at Steve _—_ desperate and full of longing, like James was finally whole again _—_ and it is not Steve that Sam doesn't trust.

 

“You are to assume that he is hostile,” Fury says sharply, and though James looks angry he doesn't argue.

 

The briefing wraps up, and James leaves shortly after. _Fury needs his help too much to turn him away,_ Sam thinks tiredly. And while it is true that James has been healing much faster than a normal person, he's still going to have a slower response time, something that might get him killed. So Sam follows James outside, trying to figure out the right approach.

 

James is still, peering out over the edge of the bridge. His face is almost serene now, and Sam can see the hints of the guy Bucky Barnes must have been before the war changed him.

 

“Even when I had nothing,” James says slowly, his eyes fixed somewhere in the distance. “I had Steve. I was Steve's keeper. I had that. Didn't matter if it was bullies or Nazis. I had his back, always.”

 

 _You're more than that_ , Sam wants to say, but he's not sure how James would take it. _You are more than who you were with Steve Rogers._

 

“I don't think he's the kind you save anymore,” Sam says instead.

 

James faces him then, ferocious and more alive than Sam has ever seen him. “Don't tell me. You think he's dangerous. You think he needs to be stopped.”

 

“No.” Sam shakes his head. “I just think you need to get that maybe he doesn't want or need saving.”

 

James looks away again, sliding his hands into the pockets of his blood-stained jacket. “Time to suit up,” James says softly, shrugging off the hand Sam hovers up against his arm.

 

“Where are you gonna get a uniform from now?” he asks James incredulously, after a beat has passed.

 

As he walks away, James’ answers with firmness and conviction. “The Smithsonian.”

 

* * *

 

Steve Rogers retrieves a shield that has not seen the daylight since he buried it deep in the woods, and straps it in place of the phantom weight that has lived on his back since he killed Howard and Maria Stark. The first Winter Soldier bows his head, but he does not pray. He doesn't think he'll be heard.

 

* * *

 

Sam Wilson watches Bucky Barnes remove the cowl of the Captain America mannequin and tuck it into a pocket. There is a sinking feeling building in his gut, like he's steadily drowning under the slow force of an incoming tide. The Falcon dons his wings and looks to the sky, which is a clear, cerulean blue. He does not think of falling.

 

* * *

 

Natasha Romanoff pulls on a disguise, easy as applying rich, red lipstick or sliding into high heels. The Black Widow sells lies like diamonds; she catches secrets with her intricate, honeyed dance. She knows men will always underestimate her. She thinks that sometimes this is not a good thing.

 

* * *

 

_“The three of you have shaped the century. I'm asking you to do this one last time.”_

 

* * *

 

Snow sat on the mountains in thick blankets, smothering the rocks below. Bucky hated the cold, even wrapped in his thick wool coat, even with Steve’s cheeks coloured a healthy, rosy pink. He remembered too well the way Steve’s face looked when it was struck with illness, infected with that ice blue tinge and those purple-bruised lips. Bucky could feel the jagged chill of the windy air through his skin, through his bones.

 

One more mission after this, Phillips had said. If they found Zola they would find the Red Skull, and then they would put at end to the largest threat to world order since WWI. Steve had clapped Bucky on the shoulder with a great smile, like maybe Bucky himself was responsible for this gift dropped in their laps. Two more missions and then maybe they could go home.

 

Somehow Bucky couldn't picture their little apartment the same way anymore. Not with the two of them in it. It was as though Steve had outgrown that too, with his serum-induced growth spurt. When the war ended, Steve would settle down with Carter, surely, and wherever they ended up Bucky would go with them. And he would live nearby, help raise Steve and Carter's kids. Maybe get hitched with a nice girl like Connie. That would be enough.

 

Someone spoke, their voice pulling Bucky away from his thoughts. Soon enough he was gripping for dear life as they rode the wire down, cursing Steve in his head the whole way. One day Bucky was gonna pass on and his tombstone was going to cite Steve Rogers as the cause.

 

They had careened onto the train, Bucky armed with his gun and his knife, Steve holding that stupid metal shield that wasn’t a weapon at all, really.

 

Bucky found easy footing on the train roof, steadied himself with a shudder, and braced his feet apart as they ran down the length of it. He matched Steve step for step, and when Steve knocked in the door Bucky readied himself for the onslaught, ignoring the numbness in his hands.

 

The trigger still felt surreal against the joint of his finger; the knowledge that the weapon in his grasp could take lives as well as save them. Bucky imagined the metal was frozen over, the frost sticking into his skin like small lines of barbed wire.

 

Steve gestured at them to split up, and Bucky nodded even though he was reluctant to do so. He thought of Coney Island, and of Steve turning green. Wrapping an arm around Steve's skinny shoulders on their trek home. Bucky thought of how Zola was somewhere on this train, and realized that this time he really might be the one to throw up.

 

Every movement he made was laced with an undercurrent of fear. Rationally, Bucky knew that Steve was still here, still with him. That there was no way in hell he was going to go back to Zola while Steve Rogers stood in the way, and wasn’t that ironic? Bucky had spent his whole life protecting Steve; he didn’t think he was ever going to get used to Steve protecting him.

 

Even as Bucky emptied his gun of bullets, even with his back against the wall and cold sweat sliding down his face, he bitterly knew it was true.

 

Steve was a golden flame, he was the life that flowed through Bucky’s thoughts and heart, and when Bucky was with Steve he was invincible. Steve made him better. And if Bucky could save Steve everyday for the rest of his life, it would always be a life he'd choose again and again. So Bucky slumped with his back to the wall, and he prayed that he'd at least take the Nazi bastard out before he could get near Steve.

 

But Steve came to save Bucky like it was nothing, and it was just another mission, another day of the new reality where Steve didn’t need Bucky to fight his battles for him. Like he only needed Bucky to watch his back and make sure he didn’t fall. But Bucky was still willing, still ready to be whoever Steve needed him to be. If not to always protect, then to be his right hand man. To wear the name Bucky Barnes with pride and a cocky grin. To be ready with quips and jokes to banish the monsters of the night away.

 

So it was easy to say, “I had him on the ropes.”

 

Something came blasting through the open doorway, knocking Steve against the wall of the train like a ragdoll. It was still easy for Bucky to pick up the shield, to move the body in front of Steve, to protect. Like it was the only thing he’d ever known how to do; still easier than breathing or falling asleep. To pull the trigger again and again until the gun emptied itself.

 

It was easy to be pushed aside as Steve took the shot meant for him. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done to watch Steve _—_ selfless, reckless, stupidly stubborn Steve _—_ getting blasted out the side of the train.

 

“Steve.”

 

_Please._

 

“Hang on.”

 

_I love you._

 

“Grab my hand.”

 

_I’m going to save you._

 

It took no effort at all to watch Steve fall away, the blue of his body vanishing into the white winter below, Bucky's name on his lips.

 

Bucky, still clinging to the biting metal of the train, stumbled back and dropped to his knees, his breath frozen in his chest. His hand bled from where it had gripped the jagged metal hard enough to tear the delicate skin. The red gash extended partly up his arm.

 

He thought of Steve’s body broken in the pristine snow. He thought of those hands he would never touch again _—_ those hands that were gentle when they touched Bucky, whether they had split knuckles or paint stains on them _—_ and he trembled, his eyes unblinking. He imagined that brave heart lying dead in the cold harsh ice of the mountains and he cried, but it was as soundless and lifeless as the soul that now lay out of his reach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And on that utterly depressing ending, I am pleased to inform you that the next chapter will be the same scene, the train scene, but from Steve's POV instead.
> 
> So have fun with that thought, and please remember to leave a review!


	8. On The Ropes

Steve watched Bucky, who was facing the vast stretch of white mountains with a distant expression. There was a tight feeling inside Steve's chest at the notion of capturing Arnim Zola. Zola, who was responsible for Bucky's forced smiles and the haunted look that sometimes followed him when he joined the Commandos on the battlefield.

 

Steve should've sent Bucky home. He knew that now. He knew he'd been denying it to himself, because he was too selfish and greedy to want Bucky anywhere but by his side. Bucky would have never left unless Steve had said that he didn't want Bucky with him anymore, and even then they both knew that it was something Steve would never say.

 

They checked their harnesses, Steve tugging each of the straps himself to check the strength of them.

 

“You ready?” he asked Bucky, feeling stupid at the way his voice was saturated with concern.

 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Sure thing, Cap.”

 

Feeling caught out, Steve gave a wan smile. His hands felt cold, even encased in gloves, and he had to resist the urge to blow hot air on them. Steve was used to being cold, though. He was used to dealing with shit winters with shittier heating. He was used to bunking with Bucky when things got bad; feeling Bucky's sharp cheekbone against the back of his head, feeling the rumbling snore in Bucky's chest against his spine.

 

So maybe that was why Steve felt rather than heard Bucky's presence behind him as they approached the line.

 

With a jerk of Steve's head in assent, they were off. The cold wind was like a blow to the face as they descended, empty space huge and ominous below their dangling legs. Steve strained to listen for Bucky's nervous, stilted breaths behind him, and was gratified that the serum allowed him that, even with the air whipping past their ears at a loud volume.

 

They landed with hard thuds, a small battalion prepared to storm the train. Steve led them down the compartment roofs, the pounding in his chest echoing the footsteps behind him.

 

They dropped inside the train with ease. Bucky was still tense, his jaw set firmly in place. Steve gestured for them to separate, mainly in the hopes that he would find Zola before Bucky did. Bucky was clearly unhappy with this, but he agreed anyways.

 

Thinking back, when had Bucky ever disagreed with him? Not on the stupid, trivial things, but on the important ones? The tactical missions they took now, and the day-to-day decisions he had made when they had first moved in together. Steve had always assumed Bucky would speak up if he was unhappy with the way things were, because Bucky was the one reliable constant that remained after everything else faded away. Bucky never shied away from Steve when it came to the truth, and Steve was never more himself than when he was with Bucky.

 

When a door suddenly slid shut between them, the fear that Bucky was unhappy suddenly seemed very real. There was a panic in his chest, compressing his body into a single, desperate vessel. When the machine appeared, Steve had no thought other than to dismantle it as soon as possible and reunite with Bucky, because this was a mistake, this whole thing was a mistake, and he felt hollowed by the realization of it. Of Bucky following him back into the hell of war because _Steve had asked him to._

 

And Bucky had never denied Steve anything. Not his friendship, not his warmth or his smiles or his hand pressed against Steve's back. Always, always watching his back.

 

Steve felt like an idiot. All those nights of hearing Bucky's nightmares and telling himself that revenge would solve it, that if Steve could get to the Red Skull and make him suffer a tenth of what Bucky had, that it would be worth it in the end.

 

Bucky had followed his best friend from Brooklyn here, not Captain America. He had said so himself. He wasn't here out of some sense of justice or morality; he was here for Steve. The truth of it burned like ashes on Steve's tongue.

 

Things had never been black and white for Bucky, not the way they were with Steve. Even when they'd been kids Bucky had been constantly justifying the punches he laid out in Steve's name, because nothing was enough, not for the two of them. Bucky would always follow Steve down, and Steve would always keep him tethered there, greedy for whatever Bucky would give him, because they had never known it any other way.

 

So Steve was able to wrench the door open easily. He got his eyes on Bucky and drank in the pale, trembling form. Steve wished, in that moment, that they were back home, wrapped like caterpillars in swaths of blankets, waiting for his mother to come through the door. He'd trade it all back _—_ the training and the transformation, the rank and the medals of honour, the health and the strength _—_ just to see the shadows vanish from where they troubled Bucky's every movement, his every expression.

 

“I know you did,” Steve replied, but what he meant was _I know you'd always follow me,_ and _I know you'd always have my six_.

 

Steve had always thought that throwing himself headlong into danger first would save his men. Because he was stronger, faster, and he healed at a ridiculous rate, so for all these reasons it made sense for him to take point, and it was the one thing Steve could do to protect them: launch himself at their enemies and eliminate them before they caused irreparable harm.

 

And God, hadn't Bucky done the same for him? Bucky getting into scrapes with bullies twice his size before Steve could even open his mouth; Bucky picking fights, championing the little guy, always warm, always there when he was needed.

 

Steve saw Bucky pick up the shield and thought, yes, that was where it belonged, safe in Bucky's hands. Bucky standing with his back to Steve, the strong set of his shoulders loose and agile as he braced his body to protect.

 

The scene flashed before Steve’s eyes: the shot, which would ricochet off the shield; the sheer force of the impact, which would knock Bucky off his feet. Bucky, who was no longer stronger and faster than Steve, but was still better in every way.

 

Steve felt the winter's air in his lungs as he moved, slamming Bucky against the wall with his shoulder as he wrenched the shield away.

 

He heard Bucky's soft noise of surprise. Steve had been unsteady on his feet from the sudden movement, and the blast was enough that he was knocked over and blown out the side of the train. The shield fell away, a small speck in the distance.

 

Bucky did not scream, his eyes torn wide with terror as he scrambled to edge of the train, his arm outstretched without a second's thought.

 

“Steve.”

 

Steve tried to reach, but the distance was too much, and the weak metal was failing under his heavy weight. Bucky strained, his entire body swayed so that he was half hanging out of the train.

 

“Hang on.”

 

The metal bar was freezing through his gloves, and Steve blinked sluggishly at Bucky, whose hands and arms had always meant warmth and safety. Bucky's fingers were outstretched like sweet salvation.

 

“Grab my hand.”

 

Steve hoped that when he died, Bucky would get to go home. Bucky deserved that. The metal screamed and howled under Steve's grip, the only thing keeping him tethered.

 

 _"Bucky—_ ”

 

Steve let go.

 

* * *

 

Sam tracks James’ six as they make their way into SHIELD. For a period he'd been worried that James was going to put on that stupid blue coat at the Smithsonian, but apparently there was still some sense in him. That trip had been for pure sentimental purposes.

 

Maria had done a drop by at James’ apartment before she'd gone for Fury, and had taken James’ spare tactical gear with her. The Captain America shield was still locked within the SHIELD building somewhere.

 

Sam was currently strapped in the Kevlar vest that James refused to wear even though he'd _already been shot,_ and Sam was definitely not above jumping in front of the guy, superserum or no superserum.

 

James had been talking to someone through his earpiece in a hushed voice as they’d travelled here. Whoever he’d been talking with, it was obviously a difficult conversation. And while Sam hadn’t eavesdropped, it had been hard to miss the wince of pain that periodically appeared on James’ face.

 

Most of the SHIELD agents are surprised as he, James, and Maria blaze towards the communications tower. James had said that he knew what he was doing, and Sam wants badly to trust him. But Sam knows what losing someone in a war feels like, and he can only imagine the things he'd do to get Riley back if he was given the chance. James is compromised, from the renewed light in his eyes to the pulsing beat of his heart, and Sam can’t trust him not to do something incredibly stupid in his quest to save Steve Rogers.

 

Maria kicks the door open and aims her gun at the two agents inside. The pair consents to moving aside pretty quickly after that. Sam hovers next to James as Maria patches them into the PA systems. When she's done, she steps back and makes eye contact with him and James.

 

James clears his throat, moves forward and leans down towards the microphone.

 

“Listen up, everyone. Most of you probably don’t know who I am outside of your history books.” He pauses, his gaze flickering to Sam and Maria. Sam does his best to look reassuring. “My name is Bucky Barnes. I saw Captain America fall off a train in the Swiss Alps and I took his place _—_ not because I wanted to, not for fame or money or glory _—_ but because Steve Rogers, the man behind the mask, was someone I believed in.

 

“I’m gonna give it to you guys straight: SHIELD has been compromised by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce, the STRIKE and Insight crews are all HYDRA. And I don’t know how far this goes, but I can tell you that if you launch those helicarriers today, HYDRA’ll be able to kill anyone that stands in their way.

 

“The price of the war was high, it was _—_ and Steve paid it, for all of us, so we owe it to him to do our best, to be our best selves. I knew Steve when he was just a skinny punk who always picked himself up off the floor, no matter how many times he’d been shoved down. I know he's here, fighting with us.

 

And I’m not Captain America. Not really, not in the ways that mattered. But I’m done denying who I am. I'm ready to stand up and fight for my beliefs, to start seeing things clearly again _—_ and if you joined SHIELD for the reasons I hope you did, I know you'll all do the same. So. Thank you.”

 

Maria deftly turns off the switch, her eyes wide. “You two... should get going,” she suggests.

 

“That was real good,” Sam says, nodding. “Was that of the top of your head or what?”

 

“Shut up, jerk,” Bucky Barnes says back, and he's very nearly smiling.

 

* * *

 

Deep underground in a HYDRA bunker, James carefully photographed every page of the file labelled PROJECT: WINTER SOLDIER on his spare phone.

 

His fingers touched the photo of Steve Rogers, that blond hair and crooked nose paused in time. Bucky whispered a fervent promise to the image. He piled the files neatly on the dusty metal table with quiet efficiency. He retrieved a match from his utility belt and set the faded pages alight, watching to ensure that all of the contained history was burned to black ashes.

 

Smoke filled his senses, smothering them, but he didn't care _—_ he finally felt alive for the first time since he'd been denied the bitter embrace of death in the frozen oceans of the Arctic.

 

When the deed was done, he tipped the table over, scattering the evidence across the ground.

 

When James tapped into his comm, his voice was calm.

 

“Found a file room. Looks like there might be some interesting stuff here, so you might want to come check it out.”

 

* * *

 

New York to DC is not far to travel when you're an expert engineer, have no care for flight paths, and take extreme advantage of the fact that there are no posted speed limits in the sky.

 

“JARVIS, can you pick up on their comms yet?” Tony questions, while simultaneously trying to make sure that he avoids flying into birds. Nature is unfortunately unavoidable.

 

“Sir, communication capabilities should be online in twenty-nine... twenty-eight...”

 

Pouring on the speed, Tony has blasted through a whole percent of battery by the time he gets within range.

 

“Buckmeister? Capsicle? You still with me?” Tony asks tensely.

 

There is a noisy, static-filled pause before Barnes answers. “Yeah. Sam and I are making our way to the helicarriers now. Maria has your chip in the communications tower.”

 

Tony doesn't bother to ask who the hell Sam is. He has a mission. He is focused. Everything else can take a backseat, get dealt with later. Barnes lying to him for three months. SHIELD secretly being HYDRA, which, by the way, was not a dead intelligence organization after all, what a surprise! And last, but certainly not least, his parents getting killed by goddamn fucking Captain America.

 

_"Tony. There's no excuse, but I'm sorry. I know I kept this from you, and I—"_

 

But no. Save the world first. Keep it together.

 

Maria is waiting for him when he arrives. She hands him the chip without small talk. He knew that he liked her for a reason, and it wasn't just because he hated dealing with Fury instead of her.

 

“Good luck,” she tells him. “You've got Carrier Alpha.”

 

“Don't need luck,” Tony chirps back. “Got hate-fuelled revenge-kill urges on my side.” He salutes her, and takes off for the helicarrier. Barnes had warned him about the Winter Soldiers, but honestly it wasn’t like they could _fly_. So Tony isn’t too worried, though he can still hear Pepper in his head, telling him not to be rash.

 

He misses her presence already. She had been by his side when he'd gotten the call from Barnes, and she had told him to go, because he would regret it if he didn't.

 

_"After Steve fell in the Alps, he was captured by HYDRA. They turned him into the first Winter Soldier. They tortured him, and... and they erased his memories. He _—_ he was the one _—_ ”_

 

But he's so angry he feels numb with it. Years of helplessness and fruitless research, being stonewalled every step of the way by fucking SHIELD and their HYDRA lapdogs.

 

At first no one had believed him except for Peggy, and even then she was hesitant. Tony felt waves of guilt off her whenever he had brought it up. She wanted to help, but she had lost a lot, and Tony hadn't wanted to burden her with it. Peggy Carter deserved better than what SHIELD had become. What HYDRA had done to the world under the guise of her legacy.

 

But then there was Pepper; beautiful, loving Pepper who _understood_. Who was supportive, brought him coffee, and told him to take breaks. Tony could relax around Pepper, could stop feeling like some conspiracy nut grasping at straws.

 

And then Romanoff, even, who believed him but told him to leave it alone, maybe because she cared. She brought him files that he asked after, and she never complained, even when he was short with her.

 

But with Barnes, with _James_ , Tony had felt like there was finally someone who was as invested in finding the killer as much as he was. Because then Tony wasn't the only one to have a loved one ripped from them because of HYDRA. Not the only one who wanted revenge. Barnes had thrown himself at the research like a drowning man desperate to keep his head above the water, and Tony had recognized the fresh grief and guilt as a mirror of his own. He'd felt kinship for the first time since Rhodey.

 

_"He’s alive, and he's been tracking down HYDRA. That’s why he was killing all those SHIELD agents. He must have broken free of their brainwashing, some time in the 90’s. I'm sorry, Tony. I'm so goddamn sorry—"_

 

Poor Captain Barnes, who had lost his hero boyfriend to the war. Who had gotten him back, albeit messed in the head. Tony didn't want to hear it.

 

Tony lands on the metal bridge of the helicarrier without issue. Pop in, complete chip swap, pop out. Then go kick some HYDRA-goon ass. Great, foolproof, four-step plan. Up until someone starts shooting at him.

 

“Not nice,” Tony says, whirling around to face his assailant, sticking the chip back in a compartment of the suit.

 

A lithe, youthful-looking blond clad in ninja gear. There is a brief moment where Tony considers the far-reaching psychological impacts of Barnes fighting someone who sort-of looks like pre-serum Steve Rogers, but he pushes the thought away for now.

 

Tony blasts at him, but the Soldier is quick on his feet, moving gracefully out of the way. He reminds Tony of Romanoff, of the fluid way she fights, using her stature and size to her advantage. This Soldier is tricky, firing from covered areas, forcing Tony to move in for close-range combat. He's also got some kind of energy weapon that Tony is so going to love taking apart once he kicks this guy's ass.

 

Tony has to follow the Soldier around as he does fancy aerobatics around the helicarrier, firing shots the entire time that land with unnerving accuracy.

 

“Sneaky little bastard,” Tony mutters, as the Soldier takes another potshot at him. The constant barrage of attacks are slowly wearing on the suit. This battle is slowly turning into a war of attrition. “JARVIS, how are things looking?”

 

“Damage levels are at 15% on critical functions, sir.”

 

Tony manages to smash into his opponent, knocking the Soldier onto his back, the energy weapon skirting across the metal grill floor. Now pinned, the Soldier thrashes violently, firing a normal gun at close range against the Iron Man suit as Tony grapples to hold him down and knock him out. Tony can't blast him, not at this range, not without risk of killing him.

 

When the Soldier runs out of bullets, he starts removing knives from his outfit and stabbing them into the gaps between Tony's armour plates. Even a few solid blows to the face aren't enough to knock out the blond, who grits his teeth through a bloodied face and keeps fighting, and Tony has to admire his sheer willpower.

 

“Don't you know when to give up?” Tony asks him seriously, smacking aside another knife. “Also, how many of these things do you have?”

 

“Shut up!” The Soldier looks _angry_ , and shoves upwards with enough strength to actually dislodge Tony off of him.

 

Surprised, Tony watches him scramble away towards the energy gun until his sense returns, and he fires off pulses at the kid—and he's really just a kid, Jesus—who slides sideways as the wind is knocked out of him, the abdomen of his ninja costume partly burned away. Frustrated, Tony storms forward and blasts the gun off the edge, where it tumbles into the waters below.

 

“Give up, kid,” Tony advises. “Whatever HYDRA did to you, it doesn't matter. You're out of weapons. Don't make me have to hurt you anymore. You don't have to go back to them.”

 

The Soldier rolls over and spits blood onto the floor. He pushes himself to his feet. Silently, he straightens and raises his fists in an invitation.

 

Tony stares at him. “C’mon, don't do this.”

 

The Soldier charges.

 

* * *

 

After dropping Bucky off, Sam has no problems inserting the new chip into his assigned helicarrier. What he does find issue with is the six-foot, two-hundred pound force of sheer terror standing at the other end of the metal catwalk, holding way too many weapons for comfort. Sam recognizes the Captain America shield strapped to his back.

 

“So,” Sam says. “Was the hair dye a stylistic choice?”

 

Steve Rogers stares at him. It is definitely unnerving.

 

“Okay. Barnes is on the second helicarrier, if you were looking for him.” Sam points off to the left. “There's nothing left to do on this one. I swapped the chip for the one that will stop the targeting. Tony Stark has the third chip. We need all three swapped to stop HYDRA.”

 

Rogers nods at him, then looks over to the other helicarrier. His face is inscrutable, but as Sam eyes the broad set of Steve’s shoulders, the thick black straps of the stealth uniform, he thinks the man looks tense.

 

So Sam approaches real slow, keeping his hands loose by his side. “I can give you a lift, if you want. I think the jets could handle the weight long enough to get you over.”

 

“Yes.” Steve nods again, then stalks towards the edge of the catwalk and jumps down. Sam is quick to follow, gliding down to stand next to him.

 

“So, uh, how do you wanna do this? I'm used to rescue positions, but maybe you've got something in mind?”

 

“Anything is acceptable.” Steve swings the shield off his back and attaches it to his forearm.

 

Alright, sure. Sam is sure his arms can handle some Steve Rogers deadweight for the time it takes to fly over, but the position will make it awkward to defend himself from. He's literally going to be putting his life in the hands of the world's most deadly assassin.

 

There is no time to question his questionable life choices right now, though. Sam grabs Steve around his upper chest, arms up under the armpits and hands locked in front, and off they go. He takes comfort in the fact that at least Steve has to protect him while they're in the air. The only person Sam is sure would escape a potential confrontation unscathed is Barnes.

 

Steve fires his gun as soon as they're in range, and Sam is startled to realize that Bucky is hunched against the hub of the helicarrier, clutching at his abdomen. Bucky Barnes is a stupid, reckless son of a bitch, and Sam has already lost three years of his life from the stress of today alone.

 

There is a new Soldier, a big beefy one. He has shed his jacket to reveal an actual metal arm and what the fuck, because not only is it metal, but it deflects bullets like some fancy Wonder Woman bangles. Steve doesn't let up on his gunfire, emptying his clip and loading another one.

 

“Drop me,” he says roughly, so Sam drops him like hot coal, and Steve goes in swinging, leaving Sam to deal with Bucky.

 

With some careful maneuvering, Sam lands on the catwalk. “You had to go and get yourself shot, huh.” Sam scowls disapprovingly as he squats next to Bucky, who has been shot not once, but _two times_ now, and Sam would kick his ass if it hasn't already been handed to him.

 

“Shut up, Wilson,” says Bucky, coughing. “I've had worse.”

 

“I sure as shit hope so,” Sam retorts, angry and frustrated. “Because as soon as I'm sure you're gonna survive? I'm gonna kill you.”

 

The sound of fighting below them intensifies, and Bucky actually tries to get up to see, so Sam pushes a firm hand against his shoulder. Sam’s completely baffled at the annoyed look he receives from Bucky, who wriggles in protest against Sam until he has to stop and wince because hello, yes, _he’s been shot_.

 

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky says, weak as a kitten. Sam ignores him.

 

“Did you get your chip in?” Sam asks, once he's ascertained that Bucky is not immediately going to die of blood loss.

 

“It's on the floor.” Bucky points down below.

 

Well, shit. Sam leaves Bucky where he is and goes to look over the railing, and sure enough he can spot the small chip lying abandoned in a precarious position on the glass floor, where Steve or the Soldier is going to stomp all over it and crush any hopes of a good future for the world.

 

“You.” Sam points at Bucky. “Stay right here. And if you so much as think of moving your ass, you better think again.”

 

Bucky scowls impressively as Sam leaps over the railing and lands lightly on both feet. The chip is a few yards away from where Steve is exchanging hard blows with the Winter Soldier. Sam winces in sympathy as Steve takes a harsh blow to the face from the metal fist.

 

The female Soldier, who Sam has had yet to see, had fought with calculated, precise movements. The blond was quicker and cheekier; he treated the physical engagement like a game. The Soldier that Steve had killed had been pure brute force and no finesse, his only goal being to overwhelm his opponents with sheer strength. This new Soldier is more vicious than his companions; he fights like he has nothing left to lose.

 

Sam edges closer, trying not to distract Steve. The sound of metal repeatedly slamming into the shield echoes loudly in Sam's ears. He prays Bucky stays put, because he can't afford a glance over his shoulder to check.

 

The Soldier spots Sam and swings a fist into Steve's face, knocking him back a few feet. Steve readjusts, bracing his feet as the Soldier pulls out a knife and launches it. Steve ducks, and Sam makes a gruff noise as he drops a hard right to avoid getting stabbed.

 

Unphased, the Soldier sweeps in with his leg to try and trip Steve up, and Steve blocks the motion with the shield.

 

But the Soldier rebounds quickly, planting his foot heavily against the base of the shield and pushing forward to grip the top edge of the metal with his prosthetic hand.

 

Steve grunts and goes to shove him off, but the Soldier holds fast, trying to rip the shield from Steve’s grasp.

 

The Soldier wins the struggle for the shield and smashes it hard against Steve, who goes flying to the edge of the helicarrier. He is slow to get up. Reflexively, Sam turns back to the hub, where Bucky is pressed against the railing. Bucky is shouting at him, or maybe at Steve.

 

Stumbling forward, Sam goes to grab the chip. Once he has it clutched in a sweaty hand, he unfolds his wings and jumps back. Hoping to avoid getting any more knives thrown at him, he quickly begins his ascent towards the central column.

 

The Soldier raises dead, blank eyes to Sam. The Soldier grips the shield in one hand, and it's then that Sam knows that he won’t make it to the top because his wings won't.

 

Bucky's eyes meet his. He throws the chip upwards in a smooth arc to Bucky's hand.

 

Sam barely feels the full blow of the vibranium shield hit his back. He falls fast and hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more full chapter after this, and then the epilogue.
> 
> Please leave a comment! Feedback is greatly appreciated :)


	9. The End of the Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Click the linked text for images! (Seriously please click they took a lot of effort.)

Captain America gazed over the still ocean waves before him, his gloved hands tight on the wheel. Sweat cooled on his forehead, his blond hair tousled and windswept. Sunlight shone through the glass panelling, warming his skin where it touched.

 

“I'm gonna put her in the ocean,” he said simply. “So tell my family I love them, but don't tell ‘em what I did. I don't want them to know.”

 

Peggy Carter was on the other end of the line. “ _Barnes_ ,” she snapped, flat and deadly. “Don't you dare. Don't you dare leave me, you understand me? You are forbidden from staying on that plane. There has to be another way.”

 

His response was soft. [“I'll tell him to save you a dance.”](http://i.imgur.com/5FVRd1t.png)

 

There was a soft sob from the other side. “James,” she said, her voice crackling over the system. [“Don't say that.”](http://i.imgur.com/SQa2Dev.png)

 

“You loved him,” he told her. “You know he would've done the same, if he were here.” He smiled, and it was genuine. “You were always the kind of gal I hoped Steve would marry. I want you to know. I wish you could've had that.”

 

“If he was here,” Peggy began, shaky brevity filling her tone, “he would fish your damn frozen ass out of the Arctic and scold you to death. He wouldn't stand for it.”

 

He barked a laugh at that, and Peggy sighed, as though realizing that she wasn't going to change his mind. “He loved you too, you know,” she said gently, and she meant it.

 

His hands twitched. “Maybe.”

 

Peggy didn't argue with him. “This isn't goodbye, James. I'm going to find you. Howard and I, we won't stop.”

 

“This is what I want.” His eyes watched the approaching horizon. The sun was going to rise. The blue waters of the awaiting ice beckoned him towards home. “This one last thing. Let it rest, Carter. Let it go. Don't be like me.”

 

“I... I'll be waiting on that dance, James Barnes.” Peggy gave a watery chuckle. “Don't forget.”

 

“Never,” Bucky promised. “A real gentleman is never rude to a la _—_ ”

 

The line went cold. Peggy Carter let the tears run down her face until she regained her composure, and then she ended the transmission.

 

* * *

 

Bucky watches Sam fall with a sick thud. He has to push down the nausea and fear in his chest, drag his eyes away from the sight even though his instincts are screaming at him to save Sam.

 

He hears metal shrieking in his ear, but he doesn't look back. Bucky yanks himself up, bracing his left hand on the rail, and staggers to the console, fingering the chip and slamming it home.

 

“Maria,” he says, quickly, “ _Maria_. It's done. Is Tony _—_?”

 

“He's already back. He's dealing with Rumlow. Get off the ship,” Maria says briskly.

 

“I _—_ ” Bucky is cut off as a shot pings wide, the bullet mark sitting where his hand had been seconds earlier. He drops to his knees to avoid further gunfire. “Sam and I are both grounded.”

 

“I don't care. You get off that ship,” Maria says fiercely. Her tone brooks no argument. “You don’t get to make that decision. You find a way. I can send Stark to you _—_ ”

 

Someone shouts. The sound is distant, like it's fading. “There's no time. Give us a minute,” Bucky tells her, desperate as he crawls to the edge of the catwalk. “A minute and then you blow it.”

 

“Barnes,” Maria protests, a warning, but Bucky shuts off his comm.

 

Sam isn't there when Bucky looks over the railing again. A broken wing lies in his place, tossing sparks into the air. Bucky pulls himself up, throws himself over the rail and lands poorly, his legs buckling underneath him as pain shoots through his abdomen. _Please be alive,_ he thinks at Sam, staring into the waters below them. _Please be okay._

 

The Winter Soldier has Steve pinned down, his metal hand smashing into Steve again and again. Blood runs into the mop of brown hair on Steve's head, trickling into the roots. His torso is riddled with stab wounds.

 

Bucky stands up, his hands balling into fists. “Hey!” he shouts, his voice deep and ragged, but he is sixteen again, skinny and reckless and full of faith. “Leave him alone.”

 

The Asset laughs, a hollow sound. He shoves Steve aside like a plaything and stalks towards Bucky. Steve makes a noise of protest, reaching a hand towards the Asset’s ankle as though to hold him back.

 

But Bucky, bleeding from two places and having torn open his stitches, is not afraid. He pities the Asset. He pities the missing humanity he sees before him, and he knows that if it hadn't been for Steve it would be him standing in the Asset's place, a gleaming weapon with no history to claim but a list of corpses.

 

The Asset cocks his head consideringly as he approaches, his bulky form encased in black gear. His eyes are wild, his face a heavily-bruised, unrecognizable mess. He could be anyone. He could be _—_

 

Bucky squares his shoulders. He is every inch the protector. He knows how this will end. He bends down to pick up the shield that shattered Sam's wings.

 

The turrets on the helicarriers reorient themselves, the guns now aimed, the sights now locked.

 

Bucky counts his breaths.

 

One, two, _three—_

 

* * *

 

 _"_ _Keep looking for him, Howard. I have a promise to keep.”_

 

* * *

 

This mission is this:

 

Eliminate the three acquired targets. Shoot to destroy. Shoot to kill.

 

What happens is this:

 

There are three bodies that fall into the ocean.

 

There is Bucky Barnes, who drags Steve Rogers out of the waters of the Potomac and passes out. They are two bodies lying next to each other once more, the warmth seeping out of them and into the earth below.

 

There is Tony Stark supporting an unconscious Sam Wilson to the shore, a white parachute floating limply in the water behind them. He sees two figures lying motionless in the distance. He hesitates, his legs unsteady. He forgives.

 

There is Nick Fury lending a hand to Natasha Romanoff, and it is a moment where she feels like she doesn't need an agency to help her make amends. She only needs the right people, and she has found them.

 

There is the beginning of something bright and pure, like freshly-fallen, untouched snow beginning to thaw, exposing the new life growing below.

 

There is _—_

 

* * *

 

“Your feet are cold,” Steve complained, shuffling where he lay next to Bucky. He nudged at where Bucky's ankle was wedged between his feet.

 

“You shut up,” Bucky groused back, tucking Steve’s blond head under his chin. “You're the one who's supposed to be cold, not me.”

 

“This was your idea,” Steve answered, still wiggling. “So I can complain all I want to.”

 

“You're a fuckin’ ingrate,” Bucky said. “See if I ever do this for you again.” He wrapped an arm around Steve's waist and huffed a hot blast of air against Steve's head.

 

“We're getting too old for this,” Steve sighed, but he stayed put, settling next to the steady warmth of Bucky's body.

 

Bucky pulled the covers up under Steve's chin. He could feel Steve shiver against the whole length of his torso where they were pressed together. “Go to sleep, punk.”

 

“Not sleepy,” Steve replied petulantly. He coughed slightly.

 

Bucky's forehead pulled together into creases at the noise. “It's snowing out. Go t’sleep.”

 

“You used t’like the snow,” Steve said, his words beginning to slur. “I saw you b’fore. At the park. When we were still kids. You liked snowball fights.”

 

“Spyin’ on me, huh?” Bucky murmured back, rubbing a slow circle against Steve's chest with his left hand. “Sounds like you.”

 

“Y’know me.” Steve tried and failed to stifle a huge yawn. “I like to enjoy the view.”

 

Bucky hummed, the noise a soft purr in his chest. “Snow's too cold,” he said. “I decided I liked bein’ warm better.”

 

“Warm s’good,” Steve agreed.

 

Bucky gave him a little shake. “Sleep.”

 

“Don't like sleep.” Steve rubbed at his eyes.

 

“You used to like sleep,” Bucky tossed back at him. “I had to drag you outta bed to come play with me when we were kids.”

 

“That's ‘cause you were a loud-mouthed jerk,” Steve retorted blearily, but it was without bite. “I was just bein’ nice. ‘Sides. Sometimes I just worry, s’all.”

 

“About what?” Bucky asked, his curiosity piqued.

 

Steve yawned again, snuggled into Bucky's chest, and he must have been half-out of it to say what he said next. “F’not wakin’ up.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes awakes in a blue room, and he remembers. He remembers the icy water and the blood. He remembers thinking of Sam and trying to get up, trying to move. He remembers grasping Steve's hand in his as they lay tangled on the dirty shoreline. He remembers losing consciousness.

 

There is the sound of a double metronome, the sound of two hearts beating in his ears. Bucky takes a moment to listen. There is a warm ache all over his body. He tries to recall his dreams and finds that there were none.

 

He is himself, and he is okay.

 

“ _He’s alive. Sam's alive. Go back to sleep._ ”

 

He does.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

Steve Rogers sits alone in the middle of Monument Park. His face is clean shaven and mostly healed. The sun has yet to rise, so he watches the shadows move across the lush, green grass. Time passes, and the minutes are very real. He checks his watch.

 

A car pulls up. Some distance away, Natasha Romanoff stands. She is supporting a taller, injured man. Next to them both is someone Steve has unknowingly waited seventy years to see again.

 

Bucky Barnes approaches him hesitantly. He is holding an old, water-logged notebook. Steve recalls his own notebook, the one now resting in the waters of the Potomac.

 

Bucky holds out the notebook like a peace offering.

 

“I had it with me. When I went into the ocean.”

 

Steve looks past Bucky's shoulder, to where Natasha and Sam wait for their friend to return. He takes the notebook, flipping through the pages with careful hands. Most of the images are blurry and ruined, their only value carried in sentimentality.

 

“Thank you,” Steve says, unsure.

 

“You don't gotta thank me for anything,” Bucky says quickly, then grimaces. Steve can see his face is flushed, even in the poor lighting.

 

“Okay.” Steve fingers the smudged ink, trying to recall the images that used to live on the page. He looks from under lowered lashes at Bucky, who shifts nervously from one foot to another. “You pulled me from the Potomac,” Steve says finally. “Why?”

 

Bucky's face crumples. Steve wants to take it back, he wants to know why this was the wrong thing to say. He wants to wash the sadness from Bucky's face with his fingertips and see him smile.

 

“There isn't _—_ ” Bucky stops short, blinking. His lips are parted but no sound comes out. Bucky swallows, runs a nervous hand through his hair. He licks his lips. He kneels on the grass next to Steve, casting a shadow across the notebook. Bucky reaches over and shuts the cover, his hand brushing with Steve's. “There isn't a damn thing I wouldn't do for you,” Bucky says, fervent and earnest, and _—_ _oh._

 

“Me?” Steve whispers, not quite believing it. There are still days where he doesn't feel like Steve Rogers at all, let alone someone who deserves Bucky Barnes.

 

Bucky smiles, bright and happy, and it's like the sun has come out at last. He nudges a hand against Steve's shoulder: warm, familiar.

 

“Yeah, punk. You. It's always been you. You once told me I was stuck with you no matter what, remember? Well, it goes both ways.” Bucky places his hand on top of Steve's, and Steve feels like he's melting under the touch of it. Bucky is still smiling at him. Bucky says, “I'm with you.”

 

“Till the end of the line,” Steve answers softly, and the words are not an echo, they are his own.

 

So it goes: Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, inseparable _—_

 

* * *

 

_“So what happened to Steve Rogers?”_

 

_“There isn't a story to tell that's only about what happened to Steve Rogers. Because the story that starts with Steve and ends with Captain America will always be entwined with the story that starts with James and ends with Bucky Barnes._

 

_And somewhere in between there is the theme: identity and friendship and forgiveness._

 

_The question is not how far you would go for someone you love._

 

_The question you ought to be asking yourselves is this:_

 

_How far could you go for someone who loves you before you learned to love yourself?”_

 

* * *

 

Natasha and Sam watch from their perch on the park bench. A singular crutch lies propped against Sam's right side. His leg is healing well for a normal person, according to the doctors.

 

“So,” Sam says to Natasha. “What do you plan to do now that you've got two reckless idiots to watch over instead of just the one?”

 

“I was actually thinking about retiring and passing the torch to you,” Natasha quips, with a sly grin that is definitely too sweet for the horrendous words that just came out of her mouth.

 

“Hell no,” Sam says, barely repressing a shudder at the thought. “Playing chaperone-slash-babysitter for two emotionally-stunted supersoldiers is not what I signed up for.”

 

“And what did you sign up for, exactly?” Natasha asks him, leaning into his side.

 

Telling her about his James Bond fantasies is not on the list of acceptable conversational topics, unfortunately. Sam has to think for a moment to come up with another answer. “Captain America needed my help,” he decides. “No better reason to get back in.”

 

They watch from afar as Bucky reaches for Steve's hand. Natasha cuddles a little more insistently against him, so Sam takes that as his cue to drape an arm around her shoulders. The sky above is clear and filled with a vast blur of beautiful colours.

 

“They're kind of cute,” Sam muses. “In a ‘two large puppy dogs that spend all their time staring and drooling at each other’ kind of way.”

 

Natasha snorts with laughter beside him.

 

“It's true,” Sam defends his comparison, giving her an incredulous look.

 

Natasha shakes her head, but the tiny crinkles at the corners of her eyes stay put. Sam feels weirdly proud of that fact. He gets the strong feeling that she's not this comfortable around just anyone. He thinks he likes seeing this warm, funny side of her, and would like to see it more often.

 

An easy silence develops between them. Near the center of the park, Steve and Bucky have laid down on the grass, their faces angled towards each other. Sam can see Bucky's lips forming soft, murmured words. They look happy.

 

“You know,” Natasha declares seriously, after a few minutes have gone by and no one has moved. “I'm starting to think that this chaperone business is going to be a two-person job.”

 

Sam makes a noise of disinterested agreement. “Think so, huh?”

 

“Yeah.” She rotates her torso to face him. Her eyebrow raises at him as she continues to speak. “Happen to know any sensible, ex-army hunks who would be interested? Long hours, paid in sarcastic comments?”

 

“Might know a guy,” Sam says coolly, trying not to betray the cold sweat that threatens his forehead. “He does a pretty mean breakfast, too.”

 

“Great,” she says, the hint of a silly smile on her unpainted lips. “Sounds like a real charmer.”

 

Sam shuts his eyes, inhaling the cool autumn air. He feels her settling back against him, and it feels like trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to say thank you for following Steve and Bucky's journey with me, thank you for reading, thank you for finishing.
> 
> Extra thanks to all my friends who helped read along and provide their amazing feedback and encouragement, and special thanks to [ladycapulet](http://clytemnestra.co.vu/) on tumblr who beta'd this for me.
> 
> If you could leave a comment, even just a "great job!", it would mean the world to me. Bonus epilogue chapter of this story is soon to follow. I hope to see you all in my next story as well!


	10. Moonlight

EPILOGUE

 

* * *

 

“ _The world has changed and none of us can go back.  
__All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best that we can do is to start over._ ”

— Peggy Carter

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha pulls on her sunglasses as they exit the airport and duck into the car that Tony Stark has waiting for them. Bucky and Steve are doing their best not to clutch at each other like lifelines, but the flashing cameras and heckling reporters make that difficult. Sam is taking up the rear of their party, glaring at anyone who dares to get too close.

 

They spot Tony inside the car when Happy opens the door for them. Steve is visibly hesitant, rubbing the back of his neck as Natasha ushers him in and he settles next to Bucky. Natasha sits next to Tony and leaves Sam to squish himself in the backseat with the supersoldiers. Sam turns his glare on her, and she winks at him when no one is looking.

 

“How was the vacation?” Tony asks into the awkward silence.

 

“Eventful,” Sam says, deadpan. “Although I can’t say I expected anything else with these two.” He jerks a thumb to his left. Only Steve has the decency to pretend to be ashamed of himself. Natasha had lost count of the number of HYDRA cells that they’d ‘stumbled across’ over the course of their two-month sabbatical.

 

“Superheroism doesn’t get a honeymoon, apparently,” Tony says, eyeing Steve and Bucky. “Romance is dead.”

 

Bucky flushes, scraping his battered sneakers against the clean interior carpeting of the car. Steve, who notices, smiles gently and bumps his knee against Bucky's.

 

“A HYDRA raid is practically a date for these two.” Sam rolls his eyes at the couple in question.

 

“Hey,” Bucky protests. “We're right here.”

 

“I know,” Sam says patiently, like he's talking to a two-year old. “My being squashed against the side of this car is telling me that.”

 

“You're a terrible friend.” Bucky frowns. “Are you calling me fat?” While it's true Bucky has put on weight since the events of Project Insight, Natasha thinks that it's a healthy weight, a huge improvement from when he'd still been going by James.

 

“Bucky isn't that big,” Steve says loyally.

 

Tony chokes on his own spit, his face going red. Natasha aptly pretends not to see how Steve flinches at the sudden outburst, looking slightly uncomfortable. She knows he still feels guilty about Tony's parents, and it's like he's waiting for Tony to start yelling at him for it.

 

“You did _not_ ,” Tony splutters between wheezes of laughter. “Why couldn't you say that in the Tower so I could have that video footage for the rest of my life?”

 

“He's calling you fat,” Natasha says to Bucky with a smirk.

 

“I hate you. Both of you.” Bucky crosses his arms and stares out the tinted window.

 

“Anyways,” Tony says in a conversational tone, “I just wanted to say that it's alright. That you left and didn't say goodbye even though I've never done anything in my life to make you think I'd ever do anything other than love and support you all.”

 

“I don't even know you,” Sam points out. “We’ve never really met until today.”

 

“I saved your life!” Tony says incredulously. “We're like brothers now.”

 

Sam doesn't seem impressed by this. He shrugs as much as the cramped space will allow.

 

“As I was _saying_ ,” Tony stresses in an annoyed tone. He turns to look at Steve. “I get it. Rogers, you aren't the only person who had bad people make you do bad things.” Tony swallows, his jaw tense. “Just because I never pulled the trigger doesn't make me any less responsible.”

 

“Tony,” Natasha starts warningly. “You weren’t—”

 

“Hey! No interrupting! You're all so rude. I'm having a heart to heart with Steven here.” Tony gives her a stern look. “I have a nice speech and you all keep ruining it.”

 

“Sorry. Do continue,” Natasha demurs sarcastically.

 

“Yes. So. Bad people, bad things. I am very empathetic, etcetera. Semi-relatable life experiences. Doesn't mean I'm an advocate for all those other murders you committed, because I'm a firm believer in the justice system. Or at least justice that doesn’t involve murder. But I see where you are coming from and I'm all for a good redemption arc, so.” Tony holds out a hand. “Tony Stark. Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist. Nice to meet you.”

 

Steve shakes Tony’s hand slowly, like he's stunned.

 

“Bravo,” Sam says appreciatively.

 

“Great. So now we're all _friends_ ,” Tony pauses to shoot Sam a dirty look, “I've cleared out the whole Smithsonian exhibit for an hour so you two lovebirds can gawk at yourselves to your heart's content. And then we've got press conference after that, and then dinner at the Tower.”

 

Steve frowns at the mention of ‘press conference’, and Bucky’s posture goes tense. They both glance at each other, and Natasha can tell when they both decide they need to ‘be strong’ for the other person. Bucky places a hand on Steve's knee, and Steve tries to smile. Frankly, it'd be a little sickening if they both weren't so ridiculously, pathetically adorable about it. And maybe if they'd gotten past hand holding.

 

“Sounds like a plan,” Sam says smoothly, then proceeds to direct the conversation towards their ‘vacation’ until they arrive at their destination. Bucky and Steve are still arguing about who was more reckless on their last raid, the two of them communicating with nothing other than various annoyed facial expressions. Natasha and Sam herd them into the building as Tony waves them off.

 

The Captain America exhibit is very patriotic coloured. Steve and Bucky hold hands and stop to admire the giant painted mural of Steve Rogers circa the 1940’s. She and Sam hang back a few feet, listening to the low voices before them.

 

“I take back what I said before,” Sam tells her, crossing his arms over his chest. “They're not cute. They're gross. They make hashtag relationship goals look like a joke. Who’s going to top seventy years of Titanic-style romance? No one. They've officially ruined it for everyone else. The press are going to take one look at these lovesick assholes and turn them into the next Brangelina.”

 

“If you hold all your relationships to that standard you'll never get past first base.” Natasha tosses her hair over her shoulder, enjoying the way Sam’s eyes follow her as she walks away.

 

The section dedicated to Bucky Barnes is elegant. A large glass panel with information stands next to a replica of the outfit he had worn before the fall. Imagery from the war has been etched on the smooth surface of the glass as well, and one section contains an image of a younger, cockier Sergeant Barnes. The inscription above the image is brief but insightful.

 

 

> _When Bucky Barnes first met Steve Rogers on the playgrounds of Brooklyn, little did he know that he was forging a bond that would take him to the battlefields of Europe and beyond._

 

When she looks back Steve and Bucky are bickering again, their fingers still entwined as Bucky makes animated gestures with his left hand.

 

“Break it up, boys,” she says, stepping towards them.

 

“Sorry, ma,” Bucky snarks back at her. Steve stifles a laugh, but looks appropriately scolded when she turns her nose up at them both.

 

Sam calls them over to the video room to watch some of the old recordings. He and Natasha trek to the projector room and look through the selections.

 

“Look,” Sam says. “Peggy Carter. Do you think Steve’d like to see that? I mean, every history book I ever read pretty much confirmed they were a thing at some point. I don’t pretend to understand what that means, considering he and Barnes pretty much looked at each other the same way back then, but they were at least close, right?”

 

Natasha thinks it over. “I think if they had a problem with it, that wouldn’t be the reason. I know that James never went to see her after he got out of the ice. I’m not sure if he was afraid, but I think he hadn’t wanted to revisit the past. Now? It could go either way.”

 

“I don’t want to make them sad,” Sam complains. “The whole point of this trip was to let them see all the good that they did. And I don’t want to have to deal with them moping around together while pretending they aren’t moping.”

 

“I’ll go ask them.” Natasha steels her nerves and ducks back into the room.

 

“What’s taking so long?” Bucky asks her. He’s sitting sideways with his feet propped on Steve’s lap. “Need help figuring out the technology?”

 

“There’s a video with Peggy Carter,” Natasha tells them, watching carefully as Steve sits up a little more, watching as Bucky’s eyes flicker over, drawn by the motion. “Just wanted to check that it would be okay to watch.”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, still looking at Steve. “S’fine.” Natasha turns to Steve, who nods.

 

Her lips press into a thin line. “Alright.” She heads back to Sam and gives him the go-ahead despite her hesitation.

 

The two of them watch Steve and Bucky below, just like they had those months ago in the middle of Monument Park. Peggy Carter is displayed on the screen, her hair curled and her lips a faded red.

 

“I knew Steve Rogers, back when he was still the Winter Soldier. I didn’t know it at the time, and I’d only just realized it recently,” Natasha says softly. “In the Red Room, where they trained us when we were young. They brought him in to teach us. He used to tell stories about this woman. The Agent, he called her. He told us to never give up on ourselves. He taught us to fight back. Even then, there was still that bit of good in him. He was still kind.”

 

“He was talking about Peggy Carter.”

 

“I don’t know if he really remembered her, or if he just thought they were stories. But it just… I don’t know. It means something, doesn’t it? I know it meant something to me.”

 

Sam leaned back against the chair he was in, his gaze serious and intent. “Guess Steve Rogers has that sort of effect on people. I’ve seen some of the videos of the few speeches he made during the war. Guy was pretty inspirational. I’m not surprised he had an impact on you, even then.”

 

Natasha looks back to the pair below them, a little lost in her thoughts.

 

“ _Even after he died, Steve was still changing my life,_ ” the image of Peggy Carter says, her voice emerging crisply from the speakers. Steve has his hands perched under his chin, and Bucky is pressed against his shoulder, long hair curtaining his face.

 

“It must be strange for him and Bucky. Steve has been out from HYDRA since 1991. Barnes only got out of the ice less than a year ago,” Sam shakes his head a little. “They both look almost the same, only... more weary, I guess.”

 

“Barnes says the serum must have stopped him from aging,” Natasha tells Sam quietly.  “Or slowed it, they’re not sure.”

 

Sam goes silent at that, his posture sliding into something that’s less— less stable, somehow. Like the fight has drained out of him, just a bit. “I just want them to be able to rest, you know? They deserve that. And all this,” Sam gestures at the general direction of the museum displays, “is mostly a circus show. The media isn't going to be any better. People are going to want to put Steve on trial for what they made him do when they find out what HYDRA did to him, and it’s all going to be biased as hell.”

 

“Tony has his lawyers on it,” Natasha says confidently. “And if that fails, we'll protect them from whatever the fallout may be.”

 

“And how long will that last? How long are they gonna have to run?” Sam closes his eyes. “How long are _we_ gonna have to run? How many more nightmares are those two going to suffer if we can't stay put in one place and give them the help they need?”

 

“I know a lot about running,” Natasha says, placing her hand on top of his. “I know what it does, I know it’s not what they need. But if it’s what we’ll have to work with, we’ll make it work. Together.”

 

* * *

 

“Is there coffee somewhere?” Sam asks the group in general. “So I can feel a little less jet-lagged before we face the vultures outside?”

 

Steve is standing very still, a sharp contrast to the way Bucky shifts his weight from foot to foot, swaying slightly as he occasionally bumps shoulders with Steve.

 

“Coffee is for the weak,” Natasha retorts, jerking her head in a dismissive motion.

 

“Strong coffee is the one good thing about the future,” Bucky grumbles.

 

Steve speaks up, “We can wait for coffee. I would be alright with that,” which is more words than he’s said all day. Sam wonders if he’s building up to the press conference.

 

“Alright.” Natasha waves down one of the few security guards posted by the door. “Starbucks it is.”

 

Sam and Bucky both order drinks with lots of cream and sugar, Steve takes his black, and Natasha only adds a touch of cream to her own small decaf cup.

 

Tony comes bustling in through the door not fifteen minutes later, wearing a completely different outfit. “We good? All caffeinated and ready to go? Press is certainly getting excited. Haven't seen them this worked up since I had to explain where and why you'd gone in the first place.” Tony side-eyes the four of them lightly.

 

Bucky looks to Steve, whose jaw is set in firm determination. Their hands entwine and they nod in unison.

 

“You coming out like that?” Tony asks wryly, gesturing to their hands, snorting at his own joke. “Get it? Coming out? Or have they not caught you up on the queer jokes yet?”

 

Bucky opens his mouth, looking annoyed, but Steve tugs at their joined hands, his eyes conveying some message as a gaze passes between the two of them.

 

Stepping forward, Natasha ushers Tony back outside. “Tell them five minutes.”

 

“Five minutes, sure! Piece of cake!” Tony grumbles loudly, but he goes willingly enough.

 

Looking to Sam, Natasha blinks, trying to decide which of them should speak first. Sam tilts his head slightly, his eyes a little wide, and she nods at him to go ahead. “The two of you are gonna be fine,” Sam says calmly. His shoulders are relaxed now, and the side of his left foot is pressed against her right one. “What happens here, today, is a little step. A small step. You’ve made a lot of progress while we’ve been abroad, and Natasha and I are both real proud of you.”

 

“Thanks mom, thanks dad,” Bucky bites out, but he’s smiling softly all the same, swinging his and Steve’s hands between their bodies.

 

Natasha nudges Sam with her elbow, a wide grin on her face. “What Sam is trying to get to is that regardless of what the assholes out there are going to say or do, we’re going to be here with you. If that means sticking out the press war or moving to Wakanda, then that’s what it means. You two are stuck with us.”

 

“Ride or die, yadda yadda,” Tony interjects, having barged back into the room. “Real good. Family moment adjourned— time to let the kids face the press like all internationally famous grown-ups must do someday.”

 

“I’m sure you’ve waited your whole life to groom someone on how to act in the spotlight, Tony,” Natasha responds.

 

“Cause I’m so great at it!” Tony exclaims. “But anyways, supersoldiers one and two are requested at the front of the Smithsonian. Couldn’t hold ‘em back any longer.”

 

“It’s okay,” Bucky says in response to Sam’s worried glance. “We’re okay.”

 

Steve nods in agreement, clearing his throat. Then the corner of his mouth curls a little, like he’s sharing a secret. “I’m fine. We’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

Coney Island was beautiful at night. The moon peered through the clouds to reflect off the waters below, casting a soft creamy glow that spread across the dark glass of the ocean.

 

Steve was looking less green now, and had consented to hold the large stuffed bear Bucky had won at the ring toss.

 

“Never again,” Steve was saying about the Corkscrew ride. “I can't believe I let you convince me that was a good idea.”

 

Bucky scoffed back at him. “Like I had to try, Rogers. All I gotta do is suggest you're too chicken to try, and you jump right to it.”

 

“That's not true,” Steve protested stubbornly, one scrawny arm wrapped around the chest of the teddy bear he was holding. It had large button eyes and a little blue cloth bowtie.

 

“Alright. Guess you got limits. Like if I dared you to go skinny-dippin’ in the ocean right now—”

 

“Bucky, there are people _everywhere_.”

 

“See, that means you're thinkin’ about it,” Bucky pointed out.

 

Steve jutted his lower lip out and shook his head. It was kind of adorable, just like the giant stuffed bear squished against Steve’s chest.

 

“Don't worry Stevie, your maiden honour is safe with me.” Bucky gave him a lopsided smile.

 

Frowning, Steve readjusted the bear in his arms. “How cold do you think the water is? We could do it with clothes.”

 

“ _Steve_.” Bucky huffed an exasperated breath. “You already got sick today. Would you really wanna add a cold to the list?”

 

“It's warm out, Buck,” Steve answered mildly. “It's summer.”

 

“You're impossible. Why do I put up with you?” Bucky threw his hands up like he was washing himself of the whole affair.

 

“Let's just go see the water, then,” Steve conceded. “Sure looks real nice tonight. Wish I'd brought my  sketchbook.”

 

Bucky gave up and followed Steve down to the unsteady sand and rocks. Steve sat the bear down on a rock and started to pull off his shoes, oblivious to Bucky's disapproving glare.

 

“Stevie,” Bucky warned, but Steve waved him off.

 

“Just gonna wade in,” Steve replied. He stripped off his socks and rolled his pants up to mid-calf.

 

“I'm not picking glass out from between your toes,” Bucky cautioned.

 

“That's disgusting,” Steve said, making a face, but maneuvered himself carefully into the shallow water. “Not too bad.”

 

“‘Not too bad’ for you is like ‘terrible and awful’ for everyone else with common sense,” Bucky complained, but he toed off his shoes and socks, deftly rolling up the hems of his trousers so he could join Steve. Stepping cautiously, Bucky waded in until he was standing next to Steve. He had been right; the water was only a little cool. The day's heat hadn't yet escaped into the night's air.

 

“You're just a jerk who loves to complain,” Steve told him.

 

Bathed in the soft glow of the moon and stars, Steve didn't look as pale as he normally did. It was as though he belonged here, like the highlight of his cheekbones and his fine blond hair were always meant to shine beneath an otherworldly light.

 

“Staring,” Steve reminded him, narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips.

 

“I’m not a jerk,” Bucky replied in an offended tone, “I'm in shock you'd even think that of me.”

 

“Sure, sure.” Steve brushed it off, turning back towards the moon. “Wish the clouds would move some.”

 

Bucky gazed up at the soft cloud cover above them, water lapping gently at his shins. He'd move the clouds if he could. Maybe just to see how Steve would look under full intensity of the uncovered moonlight.

 

You didn't get very clear skies here, though. Not in the big cities. But someday he'd have enough to take Steve to the countryside to settle. Steve could breath fresh air and paint and draw. They could lay on a green hill and look to the stars. Country girls would be nicer than city ones, surely. Steve could meet a nice girl there and have his little picket fence.

 

That thought sat funny in his gut for a bit as Bucky watched Steve wade in a little further and drag his hands across the water's surface, making tiny ripples in the water.

 

“You're quiet,” Steve said after a moment, walking back over to where Bucky still stood in only about four inches of water. There was hair hanging in front of his eyes as he peered at Bucky.

 

It took a few tries to find words. “It's just real beautiful out here,” he decided. “Opens your eyes to some things.”

 

Steve gave him a dubious look, gently splashing at Bucky with his left hand.

 

Bucky splashed back, not roughly, but some caught Steve in the face anyways.

 

Spluttering indignantly, Steve raised a hand to get Bucky back, but Bucky was quicker; he caught Steve's raised hand with his own.

 

“That's—” started Steve, but then he stopped. His brows knitted together for short moment. Steve used his other hand to push his bangs back from his face, and Bucky couldn't breathe.

 

They stared for a while, until Bucky dropped Steve's hand, feeling strange. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to.”

 

“It's okay. I’m okay, “ Steve said, rubbing at his cheeks with his sleeve to clear the water droplets. “I'm fine.”

 

“We’re fine,” Bucky echoed. The water between them felt different somehow. His face felt warmer. Then, “We should probably head back. It's real late already.”

 

They pulled their shoes back on, Bucky tucking the stuffed bear under one arm and Steve under the other, and made their way home.

 

But Bucky couldn’t stop thinking about the way Steve looked, and how his heart had suddenly gone hurting and heavy in his chest when he gripped Steve’s hand. They hadn’t held hands in years, not since they’d been young boys tearing down neighbourhood streets with dreams as big as the skies above them. Bucky found himself preoccupied with trying to recall the feeling of it, of Steve’s dry hand clutched in his, like they were ready to take on the world.

 

In the darkness of his room that evening Bucky searched himself, and he came back with the answer: _Steve, Steve, Steve_. Always Steve, in his blood and in his veins. In his heart. Bucky inhaled deeply.

 

Gravity did not shift. Time did not slow. The world did not flip upside down.

 

Those were things that had happened long ago, when a young Steve Rogers had introduced himself for the first time on the playground, and Bucky had known. He had known that this was it, this was special, and the two of them had been inseparable since.

 

The revelation did not shock him. It was more the acknowledgement of a feeling that had been building for a long while, of a longing he hadn't known that he'd had until tonight.

 

He loved Steve. That fact had always been inescapable, and realizing it didn't change that.

 

Bucky lay on his bed until dawn broke across the sky. It didn't matter if Steve felt the same. Steve was home, would always be. If Steve was here, if he had Steve, then Bucky would never have a reason to leave.

 

* * *

 

The press coverage was explosive, considering what little content they actually got filmed. A few clipped answers from Bucky, and an affirmation of the information contained in the HYDRA files regarding Steve Rogers and the Winter Soldier. Steve hardly spoke, other than confirming or shortly rephrasing what Bucky said, his body tense and uncomfortable the whole time.

 

Sam wonders if people are possibly expecting the man from the USO clips— the confident, charming Captain America of another decade. Because that was just ridiculous. After about ten stiff minutes the press had gotten twitchy, so Stark had closed the event and ushered them into a helicopter that would take them to the Avengers Tower, waving off the shouting reporters.

 

“Will Captain Rogers be joining the Avengers Initiative?”

 

“Mr. Stark, what is Captain Rogers’ culpability in the murder of your parents?”

 

Bucky makes an angry noise at the reporters, but he thankfully keeps his head down as he and Steve buckle in. Sam gives Bucky a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

 

“The hype will die off as soon as someone else does something crazier and more interesting,” Tony says, and then goes on to fill the ride with chatter.

 

Sam is still shaking the tension from his body, still watching Steve and Bucky watching each other. It's hard to tell where their affection ends and their codependency begins. Hard to even think of separating them when Sam sees then curled around each other in the aftermath of a nightmare or a panic attack.

 

After their first night out of the country, Natasha had given up and started booking two rooms when they stayed at hotels. Steve and Bucky always took watch together, and someone was always on watch, because no one could sleep otherwise. But there had been trust there, and that was good. Trust that if Sam woke up to wild eyes and a knife to his throat that it would be a HYDRA agent and not Steve Rogers.

 

And Steve is doing well. He's been out from programming for maybe fifteen years now. What worries Sam is the mere year that has passed for Bucky. The year since Bucky lost his best friend and the probable love of his life and woke up in another century, confused but still alone.

 

Sam catches Steve treating Bucky with kid gloves sometimes, with a little twist to the corner of his mouth that marrs his usually calm, neutral expression. Bucky seems a little oblivious to this, content to let Steve silently fuss over him using that strange nonverbal communication they have. He doesn't seem to realize or care about the apparent age gap, maybe because Steve looks mostly unaged. Bucky still carries some of the youthfulness untouched by war in the new roundness of his cheeks and the soft, sappy smiles he wears when Steve isn't looking.

 

That isn't to say Bucky's perfectly well just because he looks physically healthier, because Sam still sees the brief flashes of terror some days, when the light glints at a certain angle off a glass window or a car backfires too loudly. The paper-white knuckles and high-strung breathing. But then Steve and Bucky will hold hands, and suddenly most problems seem at least a tiny bit smaller. It's like some kind of happy-ending magic.

 

They still have bad days, days where Bucky or Steve shut off, locking everyone out and refusing to speak. Sometimes yelling and smashing things. Natasha doesn't flinch when this happens, but stands nearby as Sam valiantly braves the smashables to try and talk whoever it is down. If it was Bucky, then usually it takes some combination of Sam and Steve to unwind him from his dark mood. If it was Steve then God help them, because that man would turn into a literal stone wall for anyone other than Bucky Barnes.

 

Some days Natasha could get through to Steve, enough to coax some food or water, but it was always Bucky huddled at his side, refusing to be pushed away, refusing to back down when Steve shouted himself hoarse in German or Japanese or Romanian. It was Bucky who recited childhood memories over and over until he fell asleep on Steve's shoulder. Bucky who stayed until the black clouds blew over and Steve came back to a calmer, lighter mindset. Because even if they were yelling and breaking things, they refused to let themselves be pushed away.

 

And doesn't that say something about the level of trauma these two have been through, both together and apart. How there is no fear in Bucky's eyes when Steve grows numb and violent, even though every other violent outburst will put Bucky on edge. How Steve calmly pulls Bucky's hands into his own when Bucky tries to scratch himself out of his skin, automatically lacing their fingers together and pressing his forehead to Bucky's despite the fact that he still flinches painfully whenever Natasha places a hand on his shoulder.

 

The helicopter lands, and Natasha touches Sam's arm gently, nudging him out of his thoughts.

 

“Home sweet home,” Tony is saying. Sam wonders if he even paused for breath on the flight over. “Your apartment is still as you left it, Buckaroo. You and the boyfriend can share.”

 

Bucky clears his throat. “Thanks Tony.”

 

Tony looks mildly taken aback at the sudden display of sentiment. “All good, no worries. Just try to, you know, stick around this time.”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky says, smiling as he exchanges a look with Steve. “We will.”

 

* * *

 

It's always been the two of them: Steve and Bucky, circling each other. Dancing around their emotions. Baring their teeth and raising their fists. Bathed in moonlight on the beach, under the stars, in a small, rickety Brooklyn apartment. Or, alternately, on the balcony of a multi-million dollar building in the middle of New York City.

 

“We'll stay?” asks Steve.

 

It is hours after the ‘welcome home’ dinner Tony had thrown for them. Sam and Natasha are ensconced in the room across the hall, pretending that their status as supersoldier sitters meant that they needed to spend all their waking moments planning together. But Bucky knows better, and he's happy for them. Frankly, he finds Sam's rather smooth attempts at flirting to be amusing, mostly because Sam and Natasha continue to tease him and Steve for hand holding even though the two of them haven't even gotten there yet.

 

With that thought, Bucky reaches for Steve, who slips his hand immediately into Bucky’s. His hand is warm and soft and dry. “Yeah. We're gonna stay. If that's okay with you.”

 

Steve, now looking out at the tiny twinkling lights of the cityscape, nods. His profile is sharp and contrasted with the dark evening sky, his hair backlit by the soft orange light of the room behind them. Bucky looks at Steve and thinks how this moment belongs to him, to the both of them. Seventy years in the making.

 

They walk back inside, settling on the squishy, medium-sized couch. Bucky tucks himself immediately into Steve's side, squirming until they get comfortable. He knows that he'll never get used to this, because his body pressed against Steve's is an incredibly new feeling every time. If he was in a more vulnerable mood he might even call it a miracle.

 

“I know things aren't the same,” Steve begins quietly, after they've gone still for a minute or so. “We're not the same. And some of that, some of it isn't okay. What happened. What I did. I think about it a lot. All these things I've done, all this time... and my path still leads back to you. You slept for seventy years. And I thought you were dead.”

 

“So did I, champ.” Bucky tilts his head against Steve’s broad shoulder. “But we're not. We're here. We found each other.”

 

“I was scared of finding you,” Steve admits, turning to meet Bucky's eyes. “I knew I wasn't the same. I was scared. Scared that...” His face scrunches up, and Bucky can't help the laugh that bubbles up in his throat.

 

“I know, you ain't scared of nothin’, Stevie. But you know you never gotta be scared of me, right?” He lifts his eyes to glance at Steve’s expression.

 

Steve huffs, an amused look flashing over his face that rapidly dissolves back into melancholy. “I thought you wouldn't have me anymore. Not—” He made a vague gesture over his head to symbolize his fractured mind. “—like this.”

 

"Why wouldn't I?” Bucky demands, heat flaring in his chest as he grips Steve’s hand tighter. “Why not. There's nothing wrong with you. What they did— what they—” He breaks off, overwhelmed. “It's not your fault. You're still Steve. I still— I—” Bucky trembles a little, and Steve wraps an arm around his shoulders with a small, hurt noise. Closing his eyes, Bucky can soak in the warmth of the embrace, the solid feeling of Steve sitting next to him. Real. Alive.

 

“Seeing the old me at the Smithsonian,” Steve says eventually, now carding his fingers through Bucky's hair. “It brought back more memories.”

 

Bucky ponders that for a while. “Which ones?”

 

“That night under the stars.” Steve's face is flushed with a hint of rosy pink, and his fingertips are brushing lightly against Bucky's scalp. “Like this.”

 

“Did you know?” Bucky wonders aloud. “Did you know, then?"

 

There is a pause. “How I felt?” The _about you_ is unspoken, but Bucky hears it in the careful measures of Steve's breaths, of the rise and fall of the chest pressed against Bucky's shoulders and back.

 

“I knew from Coney Island,” Bucky confides sheepishly. “I knew from you in moonlight and us holding hands and that stupid stuffed bear.”

 

Steve knocks his shoulder against Bucky's. “I kept that bear in my room till I left for training. I remember that it was too big to consider taking with me, or I would have.”

 

“They woulda kicked you out of the army for that,” Bucky snorts.

 

“I would've told them it was a gift from my best gal,” Steve says, and his eyes are shining a bit like they used to.

 

Bucky makes a pleased sound as he smacks Steve's arm. “Rude as always, Rogers. Time away from me doesn't change that, seems like.”

 

“Time away from you was the worst,” Steve answers honestly. “I missed you so much on that USO tour. Missed you before that, even. But to answer your first question, about when…” He trails off, unsure.

 

“You don't have to say if you don't think it's right,” Bucky tells him amicably. It's alright that Steve doesn't have all his memories back just yet, because they are coming back, in trickles and in floods. Every day Bucky sees Steve is happier and more sure of himself, and he knows that this is all he ever wanted for the two of them; safe and happy and together.

 

“No, I think I do,” Steve answers, but his facial expression is contorted minutely enough that Bucky recognizes the underlying hesitation. “It was. That day. On the train.”

 

“Oh.” Bucky doesn't need to ask for clarification to know that Steve is referencing the day he fell.

 

“I remember thinking that you were unhappy. That I caused it. Bringing you back into the war.”

 

“No,” Bucky protests vehemently. “I chose to go back.”

 

“Because of me. You can't say that you would have taken up the fight again if I had been in Brooklyn instead of on the front lines.”

 

Bucky goes quiet, because Steve is right.

 

“Took me long enough though, huh,” Steve adds, with a self-deprecating laugh that ruffles the air across Bucky's head.

 

“If we hadn't,” Bucky begins. “If we hadn't. I would never have said a thing. If you stayed in Brooklyn or we stayed in Brooklyn, I never would have said a damn thing.”

 

Steve hums. “I don't think that I would have, either. We would have been two bachelors. Or maybe you would have married that girl. Bonnie?”

 

“Connie,” Bucky corrects, fondness filling him as he remembers all those times he and Steve got ready for dates together. Seeing Steve dressed up, his hair neatly combed and parted like they were going to church. “You know, I liked it when the dates sunk, mostly. Cause then it was just you and me.”

 

“You were always hugging me,” Steve recalls. “Putting your arm around my shoulders.”

 

Bucky drags his knuckles across Steve's lower thigh. “You should've wised up sooner. Fella can only take so much of you battin’ your lashes and being such a tease. Don't think I could've gotten anymore pathetic, except spilling my guts to you.”

 

“You were never,” Steve murmurs, and the hand that is wrapped around Bucky's tightens. “I always think the world of you, Buck.”

 

Bucky doesn't answer, content to close his eyes and listen to the quiet sounds of Steve's breathing. “No more what ifs, though,” Bucky finally says. “No more. It’s you and me or bust, Rogers. Just the now. Right here, right now. We’ve got too much history weighing down on us, we gotta let some of that go.”

 

Steve shifts against Bucky’s shoulder. “There’s still a lot of things that need to be put right.”

 

“And you aren't one of them,” Bucky answers firmly. “Ain't nothing wrong.”

 

Steve gives him an incredulous stare. “You and I have enough issues for a magazine subscription, Buck.”

 

“Very funny. Did Sam tell you that joke.”

 

Steve shakes his head, untangling his fingers from Bucky's hair before hesitantly pressing his lips to the side of Bucky's forehead.

 

“Sap,” Bucky says fondly.

 

“I want you to know.” Steve curls in, the warm press of his arms surrounding Bucky like a soft blanket. “I'm not leaving anymore. I promise.”

 

“I know.” Bucky yawns, rubbing his head against Steve's shoulder like a cat. Steve always keeps his promises.

 

“I'm.” Steve inhales, pausing. “I'm home.”

 

Bucky makes a happy noise. “Me too, Stevie. Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I'm not 100% what this is (it's not beta-d, all mistakes are my own), but I wanted an excuse to write fluff and stuff. The timeline is a bit blurry on this, so don't look too hard at that. You can essentially consider this to be an outtake of sorts. Hope you all enjoyed seeing our soft boys together as much as I did :)
> 
> Reminder to leave a nice comment to make my day, and hope to see you all at my next fic!
> 
> \- Amanda


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